Bengaluru: One out of every seven women in Bengaluru’s garment industry have been raped or forced into a sexual act at work, says a study.
According to a report by Reuters, women employees in Bengaluru’s 1,200 garment factories face abuses like intimidation, unwanted sexual attention, being forced to watch pornography, being punched and burnt.
The study was carried out by the women’s rights groups Sisters for Change and Bengaluru-based Munnade.
“We were shocked by the levels of sexual violence (we found) during our survey,” Alison Gordon, executive director of the UK-based Sisters for Change, told Reuters.
“There is such a permissive environment of abuse in the factory, with the ... supervisors often being the perpetrators. There is no fear of the existing laws,” he further added.
India’s garment and textile industry, which is worth Rs 2.7 lakh crore and employs about 45 million workers, operates in the informal sector and is poorly regulated.
The study, which was based on surveys of women workers, asserted that 82 per cent of the respondents did not file any complaint to the authorities as they had no faith in the police or senior management.
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