Gender-based violence and harassment
Gender-based violence and harassment, including sexual harassment, is among the most pervasive human rights violations globally and a primary obstacle to gender equality.
In the global garment industry, gender-based violence and harassment is a widespread and entrenched issue, especially when workers cannot exercise their right to bargain collectively and organize. In many factories, where women are often concentrated in lower paid positions and men are in supervisory or managerial roles the workforce is predominantly female and management largely male, gender-based violence and harassment is an everyday experience for women workers. Managers, often men, frequently direct discriminatory or sexually charged insults at workers and use their positions of power to harass women, including coercing workers into sexual relations, reinforcing the patriarchal power imbalance that exists outside the factory and creating a culture of impunity for perpetrators. Women workers regularly face the threat of dismissal for speaking out or reporting abuse.
The WRC combats gender discrimination and harassment by investigating and documenting violations of women workers’ rights and working with brands to ensure that their factory suppliers remedy these violations and stop further practices of gender-based discrimination or sexual harassment and abuse.
Binding Gender Justice Agreements
The WRC has been at the forefront of efforts to combat GBVH in the garment industry by developing enforceable mechanisms that go beyond voluntary codes of conduct and provide a consistent response to rooting out GBVH from factories. The WRC has supported worker organizations to negotiate binding Gender Justice agreements:
Lesotho Agreements
The Lesotho Agreements signed in 2019, represent the first binding agreement to hold signatory brands accountable for a factory program to prevent and address GBVH at their denim supplier factory, Nien Hsing in Lesotho.
Dindigul Agreements
The Dindigul Agreement, signed in 2022, is a binding set of accords between the Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labour Union (TTCU), the Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA), Global Labor Justice (GLJ), Eastman Exports, and H&M. Covering 5,000 mostly women workers at Eastman’s Natchi Apparel and related facilities in Tamil Nadu, India, it establishes a comprehensive program to prevent and address gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) through training, worker-led monitoring, independent grievance mechanisms, and transparent remediation.
Central Java Gender Justice Agreement
The Central Java Gender Justice Agreement was signed in 2024 among Ontide (a major apparel manufacturer), local unions, and international labor rights organizations and reinforced by Fanatics.
These agreements are transforming workplace realities for tens of thousands of workers and continuing to build upon the WRC’s core model of binding accountability mechanisms. Common elements of these agreements are:
- protections for freedom of association as an essential tool in combating workplace GBVH and a leading role for unions in implementation and enforcement;
- independent complaint and investigation mechanisms with the power to impose discipline against harassers, up to and including dismissal;
- comprehensive education programs, conducted on company time, with no loss of pay for workers;
- utilization of a broad definition of GBVH, drawing upon the ILO Convention 190 on violence and harassment in the world of work.
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