14 April 2018

...Harassment just outside factory walls is frequently mentioned by female garment workers.

But harassment within the factory is just as common, with workers being groped or enduring sexual comments from contract workers, supervisors or peers...

Alongside this harassment, female garment workers report routine pregnancy testing and discrimination from factory management.

Their claims are confirmed in a soon-to-be-released gender equality assessment of 16 foreign-owned garment factories in Yangon.

"A significant proportion of women interviewed seemed to have been asked to go through a pregnancy test before securing employment in the factories," International Labour Organisation representative Catherine Vaillancourt-Laflamme says.

Factory owners do not want to pay workers' 98 day-maternity leave entitlement and are worried their production line will be broken.

The law is silent on medical exams and pregnancy tests during recruitment, adds Ms Vaillancourt-Laflamme.

Factory representatives rejected the report's findings, suggesting respondents may have confused pregnancy testing with general questions about their health.

Pregnancy testing is a problem in the region and one of the poor labour practices that foreign-owned factories have imported into Myanmar, according to Jacob Clere from garment sustainability organisation SMART Myanmar...