CARE Cambodia is pleased to announce it has signed agreements with six new garment factories. These are the first factories who have committed to work with CARE to create a workplace culture where discrimination against women is not acceptable.
The six factories are: Canteran Apparel, Quality Textiles Co. Ltd., Quantum Clothing (Cambodia) Ltd., Sixplus Industry, Splendour Industry and Sportex Industry Co. Ltd.
CARE will work with management at each individual factory to develop a code of conduct relating to sexual harassment which is simple to understand and easy to use. This will be complemented by training for middle management on discrimination and sexual harassment so that they are aware of how to recognise this and prevent it from occurring.
These factories have said they are keen to be involved with activities which promote the safety of their workers and are happy to have CARE’s support to ensure that men show respect for their female colleagues at work.
“The code of conduct will help us to work very effectively and promote staff standards within the factory,” says the HR manager of Quality textile Co. Ltd. “The code of conduct is to prevent sexual harassment from occurring in our workplace in order to increase productivity.”
“We are very happy that these factories have chosen to lead the way in ensuring their workers are treated with respect and are free from discrimination,” says Stav Zotalis, CARE Cambodia’s Country Director. “Factories do not just have a legal responsibility to ensure that no sexual harassment happens in the workplace; having good policies in place is good for their business as it lets workers know that their rights are respected by management and preventing harassment can benefit productivity. We hope that the good example of these factories will inspire others to follow suit.”
The work forms part of CARE’s Safe Workplaces, Safe Communities project, which aims to reduce gender-based violence and sexual harassment in Cambodian workplaces and communities. These activities are an expansion of previous successes developing similar codes of conduct for beer outlets to protect the rights of beer promoters.
The Safe Workplaces, Safe Communities project is funded by the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women. It forms part of CARE’s Socially Marginalised Women program, which has the goal of ensuring women have a legitimate voice and benefit equitably from social change.
Further information about CARE's work with garment factories can be found in the factories section of our website.
Factory managers interested in learning more about developing a code of conduct for their workplace should contact Ms. Kalyan Rath (kalyan.rath@careint.org) for more information.