Cambodian Fashion NGOs: are they doing Good?

Abstract

During the Khmer Rouge's genocide in the 1970s, Cambodia's entire infrastructure was destroyed and its ancient textile traditions were nearly eradicated. However, recently Cambodia has emerged as a top garment producer and also made great strides in restoring its world-famous sericulture. Fashion items are produced in large factories, in nongovernmental (NGO) organizations/associations and in private enterprises. While large-scale fashion production is Cambodia's biggest export industry, the industry is suffering from ongoing labor strife, low wages and poor work conditions. Another key problem of the industry is that the designs and market for the fashions are exclusively Western. In contrast, NGOs/ associations have been championing a progressive social agenda and positively impacted the local civil society. They also laid the foundation for an emerging local fashion scene. NGOs generally recruit their employees from the most disenfranchised segments of the population, such as formerly prostituted women, homeless children and underprivileged youths or unemployed rural people. NGOs help these employees get skills training and cultivate and harness their creativity. However, NGO fashion production also has its downside. These include financial instability, too much focus on donor priorities, massive bureaucracy, and lack of accountability to local workers by foreign donors and passive execution of Western design ideas. At the same time, there are positive examples as well. Successful fashion NGOs not only provide employment, but teach financial, management, design and entrepreneurial skills to their constituents as well. They also promote collective decision making, emphasize local aesthetics and utilize local physical and human resources. IntroductionFashion is one of the cornerstones of cultural and economic globalization. The 1974 Multi-Fiber Arrangement offered developing nations order quotas to enter the garment trade. This meant a somewhat fair shot for clothing producers in developing countries, while spreading the apparel industry worldwide. When the garment industry became international, national governments with scarce natural resources, like Cambodia, sought to provide the global garment industry with cheap labor. Access to cheap labor in Cambodia meant easy access to people in poverty, or more precisely, access to women in poverty. Women make up 90-92 percent of Cambodia's 700,000 strong garment industry work-forces [1]. Cambodian garment workers are mostly young women who travel to Phnom Penh from rural provinces in search of work. These young women represent a steady supply for the garment industry-because in Cambodia it is a daughter's filial responsibility to contribute to the family finances [2]. Cambodian garment productionGarment production is important for Cambodia because it has few natural resources. It has become the country's second largest industry after agriculture [3]. The garment and footwear sector already accounted for roughly 80 percent of the country's total exports in 20...