Where we work

South Asia

The WRC has a robust program of factory monitoring and worker complaint remediation in the South Asian countries of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, all of which are considerable exporters of apparel to the US and European markets.

Systemic Abuses in South Asia’s Garment Industry

The export garment sector in South Asia is characterized by some of the industry’s lowest wages in the world: garment workers typically earn less than $150 per month for full-time work, and, in many cases, less than $100 per month. These wages fall far below a living wage in any of the major garment exporting countries in the region.

South Asian garment workers frequently experience gender-based violence and harassment, which is particularly pervasive in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Southern India, where women account for as much as 70% of the workforce. The WRC’s investigations in this region have also found repeated incidences of wage theft, including unpaid overtime and severance, and frequent violations of occupational health and safety standards and the right of freedom of association.

WRC’s Impact: Advancing Safety and Wage Justice

Despite these challenges, the WRC’s work has led the way to lifesaving progress for garment workers in South Asia. In Bangladesh, after nearly 2,000 garment workers were killed in a series of fire and building safety disasters in the region, the WRC played a leading role in the design, negotiation and implementation of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety. This landmark binding agreement, between worker representatives and more than nearly 200 international apparel brands, which was signed in 2013 and continues in effect, has reduced worker fatalities from fire and building safety by over 95% across more than 1,600 factories, employing over two million workers. The Accord has replaced reliance on voluntary, brand-controlled auditing systems, which failed to protect workers’ lives, with legally enforceable commitments that provide effective protection for workers’ safety.

In 2022, international apparel brands and worker representatives signed another binding agreement to expand the Accord’s factory safety program to cover more than 500 additional garment factories in Pakistan, where factory fires had previously claimed the lives of hundreds of garment workers.

In 2021, the WRC’s engagement with international apparel brands sourcing from the State of Karnataka, in southern India, achieved a historic victory for wage justice for workers and respect for rule of law in the region’s export garment industry. The WRC prevailed on leading US and European brands to require the state’s factory owners to end their multi-year long-defiance of a state court order, won by a local union, requiring payment of an increase in the minimum wage. The WRC’s work secured not only implementation of the wage increase but distribution of nearly $30 million in backpay to correct the wage theft, benefiting nearly 400,000 workers at roughly 1,000 factories.