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30-06-2022, 12:29 AM
https://www.theguardian.com/global-devel...nt-workers
Women paid a pittance for making clothes for top US brands are often forced to have sex by bosses to keep their jobs, say unions
Marie says she was less than a month into her job at a garment factory in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, making clothes for a range of well-known US brands, when the factory’s head of security gave her an ultimatum: have sex with him or be fired.
The 24-year-old says she had little choice. She relies on her job to support her four-year-old son after both her father and husband died.
“He made a lot of promises. He told me he was going to help me financially with my son’s school and was also going to help me pay my rent with a promotion, so I did it,” she says. “Afterwards, he told other security officers and every time I came to the factory, I felt humiliated and diminished. I never got a salary increase and never got any financial support.”
The head of security was not the only man at the factory to notice Marie. In March, her line supervisor began sexually harassing her, telling her he masturbated when he thought of her at home. She felt powerless to report him, knowing what happened to other women who complained. So to keep her job, she kept silent. But his behaviour got worse.
“He told me that if I didn’t agree to sex with him, he was going to pull me out of the line where we assemble clothes,” she says. She refused and in retaliation every time she went to the toilet she found piles of clothing added to her workstation, making it impossible to complete her work for the day. After weeks of harassment, she finally snapped when he began touching her inappropriately.....
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Women paid a pittance for making clothes for top US brands are often forced to have sex by bosses to keep their jobs, say unions
Marie says she was less than a month into her job at a garment factory in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, making clothes for a range of well-known US brands, when the factory’s head of security gave her an ultimatum: have sex with him or be fired.
The 24-year-old says she had little choice. She relies on her job to support her four-year-old son after both her father and husband died.
“He made a lot of promises. He told me he was going to help me financially with my son’s school and was also going to help me pay my rent with a promotion, so I did it,” she says. “Afterwards, he told other security officers and every time I came to the factory, I felt humiliated and diminished. I never got a salary increase and never got any financial support.”
The head of security was not the only man at the factory to notice Marie. In March, her line supervisor began sexually harassing her, telling her he masturbated when he thought of her at home. She felt powerless to report him, knowing what happened to other women who complained. So to keep her job, she kept silent. But his behaviour got worse.
“He told me that if I didn’t agree to sex with him, he was going to pull me out of the line where we assemble clothes,” she says. She refused and in retaliation every time she went to the toilet she found piles of clothing added to her workstation, making it impossible to complete her work for the day. After weeks of harassment, she finally snapped when he began touching her inappropriately.....
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