Imprisoned workers

 Young female workers have been held captive behind the walls of garment factories in southern India and prevented from leaving the premises at any time. The policy of housing large numbers of young female migrant workers in dormitories on factory premises is widespread in the region.

Factory owners say the policy is necessary to ensure worker safety in largely rural areas. But young women are effectively imprisoned in their workplace and allowed minimal contact with the outside world for up to four years.

A recent survey of 743 spinning mills across the region, carried out by the India Committee of the Netherlands, a human rights organisation dedicated to improving the lives of marginalised people in south Asia, found more than half of the mills were illegally restricting the free movement of resident workers.

According to multiple interviews with workers in factories belonging to Sri Shanmugavel mills, young women living at the factories are either not allowed mobile phones, or had their calls monitored by factory supervisors.

On visits to spinning mills located in rural areas around Tirupur, Palladam and Dindigul in Tamil Nadu, the Guardian spoke to workers who confirmed that young female workers were not allowed to leave the factory of their own free will at any time, except on rare trips to local markets accompanied by factory security.

Local organisations said they are not allowed to check on the working or living conditions of young female workers housed at spinning mills and face intimidation and threats from factory owners.

“Restraining or confining workers to not leave mill premises of their own free will – and, when it happens, then never allowing them to move freely outside without company guarding – is clearly in conflict with Indian legislation,” said R Rochin Chandra, a legal expert and director of the Centre for Criminology and Public Policy, a research centre based in Rajasthan.

Tamil Nadu’s spinning mills, which feed into India’s booming export garment sector, have long been the subject of allegations of serious labour abuses, including the practice of Sumangali, where wages are withheld from lower caste and Dalit workers for years at a time.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jan/04/workers-held-captive-indian-mills-supplying-hugo-boss