Pressure group Clean Clothes Campaign said garment workers in South and Southeast Asia, many already surviving on “poverty pay”, had only received three fifths of their regular income on average from March to May. In some regions of India, workers received less than half their income, according to the group’s report “Un(der)paid in the pandemic”. Extrapolating the data, researchers estimated garment workers worldwide had lost $3.19 billion to $5.79 billion in the first three months of the pandemic. Bangladeshi seamstress Shorifa Begum, 25, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation she was sacked by text message in May after fellow workers protested over unpaid wages. Clean Clothes Campaign said clothing companies had long profited from low wages in countries with lax labour laws.

Source: Dhaka Tribune August 10, 2020 18:11 UTC