Authors from NORC at the University of Chicago conducted a five-month rapid assessment of COVID-19’s impact on the Ready Made Garments industry (RMG) in Bangladesh and India with funding from the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS). The research presented here highlights the increased risk of forced labor among vulnerable working populations associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The rapid assessment addresses descriptive and normative questions about the short- and long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Bangladesh and India’s RMG industries. Qualitative data collection methods included 19 semi- structured key informant interviews (KIIs) with governmental and non-governmental stakeholders and actors across the RMG supply chain. KIIs were informed by a systematic review of recently published media articles, reports, white papers, and other online content. RMG sector stakeholders, including private sector supply chain actors, policy actors, and implementing partners, can use this research to adapt programs and address the multi-faceted challenges facing apparel workers during a global pandemic.
In India, many women from former untouchable caste groups (Dalits) are domestic workers. Despite attempts at seeking formal, legal recognition, they continue to be seen by the state as part of a broad, ambiguous category of “informal workers” whose work is stigmatized and not legislated for. In this essay, I suggest that the discourses and practices of a neighborhood‐level Dalit domestic workers’ union in Mumbai reconceptualize domestic work as “formal” work. The workers assert themselves as formal workers (kamgaar) owing to their long histories of work in specific neighborhoods, relationships of trust with employers, and their ability to negotiate long‐standing employment with them. Though domestic work does not align with the state’s definition of formal work (for example, through the presence of written contracts), for the workers, it was their own qualities, origins, social positions, and relationships that defined the formality of work rather than the other way around. Centering respect and dignity in their own work, their union also facilitated the articulation of the caste and gender‐based prejudices that have not only kept domestic workers outside the ambit of formal recognition but also have brought about routine encounters with violence and harassment for Dalit women in the local neighborhood.
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