"
Myanmar's garment workers join forces amid lure of city jobs," Reuters, 1 Dec 2014
"The 35-year-old is now an active
member of Thone Pan Hla, Myanmar's first female garment factory workers
association, sharing her experience with young newcomers from the
countryside. Women account
for an estimated 90 percent of the 180,000 workers in Myanmar's garment
industry, which is expanding again following the easing of
international sanctions. Clothing exports are expected to be worth $1.5
billion in 2014. News of job prospects in the city is spreading, and thousands of young women from villages and towns across Myanmar are pouring into city factories for their first ever taste of financial independence. Yet
for many of these young women, the transition from life in the village -
with parents' strict guidance and financial support - to the city can
be fraught with risks and challenges. Young
women can easily fall prey to unscrupulous landlords and supervisors,
said Helen Gunthorpe, founder of Business Kind, a social enterprise that
helped set up Thone Pan Hla in 2011... Thone
Pan Hla has no political affiliation and focuses on the welfare of
women garment workers. Its 'Sunday Cafe' and temporary dormitory provide
a space for women to make friends, learn skills and share tips to help
newly-arrived women ease into their new lives... Most
garment workers earn about $80 to $120 a month and toil 12 hours a day,
six days a week, in Hlaing Thar Yar, a factory town outside the former
capital Yangon. The
spacious Sunday Cafe - launched in August and open on workers' one day
off - offers snacks and tea, a small library with books and magazines, a
place to wash and iron clothes and a flat-screen TV showing Hollywood
movies and Korean soap operas.
Upstairs, the temporary dormitory for new migrants has space for 18 women. Gunthorpe
said that her organization received small grants in 2011 and 2012 that
allowed research into the lives of garment workers, leading to the
establishment of Thone Pan Hla. "The need was easy to see because there was no organization for women garment workers here in Myanmar at the time," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Thone
Pan Hla currently has around 2,000 members, who pay a one-time
membership fee of 300 kyats (about 30 cents). Aye Cho Khine is one of a
handful of members who turn up for regular meetings at the Sunday Cafe. "We're
new so we're still trying to gain momentum," Aye Cho Khine said. "Only
time will tell how useful we can be but having a space like this to meet
and share will at least broaden the horizon for the newcomers."
Myanmar
once had a thriving garment industry, employing close to 300,000 people
before the United States imposed trade sanctions in July 2003, said
Khine Khine Nwe, joint secretary general of the Myanmar Garment Manufacturers Association. "After the sanctions, it went as low as 60,000. Almost half of the factories gradually closed down," she said. With
sanctions now suspended or lifted, the garment industry is expected to
continue growing. So will the need to support the industry's workers. "A
lot of young women spend most of their days in factories, and they
don't have the opportunity to meet each other, share ideas and make
friends," said Win Yu Khine, 26, who earns $96 a month, sitting with
friends at the Sunday Cafe. "This is fun."
Khine Khine Nwe welcomes the idea of the Sunday Cafe but said it should also be open to female employers like herself. "It
should be a space for every woman in the industry where once you enter,
nobody is an employer or nobody is an employee... a platform to make us
feel we're the same."
