Leon Traub

Changes in Cambodian Factories - 2.0

When you enter a clothing store these days, you can see signs saying “100% Fair
Trade” or “Eco Friendly” everywhere.
Even stores, like Primark, try their best to make sure that the consumer knows he is
buying fairly and eco-friendly produced clothing.
But for some people, this does not go far enough: they completely avoid fast fashion
stores, fearing the person that produced the piece of clothing is not treated fairly –
but does that really change something, at all?

Most of the clothing we buy, is produced in Asia. That is, because cost of production
and salary are rather low there, so the companies can make more profits.
Most of the time, the people working in these garment factories are uneducated and
have no other choice. They may come out of a small village, and now have to
provide for their families.
Phoan, a worker in one of Cambodia's 1200 garment factories, explains just that: she
sends $30 – that is half her monthly wage – back home, every month. She express
that she supports ten people back at home, besides working in the jeans factory, she
has no other choice to earn money, since she has no degree or education at all.

Ai, Phoans co-worker, explains that this lack of education they both have, is the
reason they heavily depend on the factory job – they just could not do anything else.
She says “if people don’t buy [the jeans], I’m unhappy because I wouldn’t have a
job.”
The logic behind that seems easy: she says, that if people do not buy the jeans,
because they think she's not treated right, they actually could do more harm than
good, because she could lose her job if the jeans do not sell enough.

These days, Cambodian garment factories are well monitored. The Factory in which
Ai works, for example, is partnered with the International Labor Organization (ILO),
which ensures that her rights are being protected.
This comes from a big scandal a British documentary uncovered in 2000. Those
revelations led to big Companies like Nike and GAP pulling out of the Cambodian
market, leaving the garment industry on the brink of collapsing. So the Industry
worked hard to regain trust, leading to the founding of Initiatives like the ILO, also
aiming to protect the image of big brands and consumer conscience.