“Any mother who sends their daughter to a factory will be scared for her safety. I have worked in this industry for more than 20 years and I have seen terrible things happen: rapes, suicides and even murders,” said Chellamma*, a 46-year-old garment worker in the city of Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu.
Tiruppur, which is known as the knitwear capital of India, bustles with garment factories, but when her two daughters started looking for work, Chellamma insisted it was in the same factory as her, so that she could at least try to keep them safe.
“Women workers have no power to oppose the men in power – be it supervisors or managers. They can do anything to any woman, we are all at their mercy and we have no one to support or stand for us,” she said.
