In April 2022, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) published a joint research report with Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA) and Society for Labour Development (SLD) on gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) in garment factories in India that had supplied to, or had recently supplied to international brands, including American Eagle, ASDA, C&A, Carrefour, H&M, JD Sports, Kohl's, Levi Strauss & Co., Marks & Spencer, Primark, Tesco, and VF Corporation.

The report brought to light the unprecedented levels and new forms of GBVH faced by women garment workers during the pandemic, including: intensified violence and harassment; intensified work rates with inhumane and mandatory overtime; lack of protection from COVID-19 exposing women (and their families) to disease; discrimination and unfair dismissal, including for pregnancy; wage cuts driving workers further below the poverty line, and widespread wage theft; demand for attendance at work during lockdowns, leading to police harassment and violence during commutes; and a continuum of violence in the home, linked to their experiences of workplace exploitation.

In October 2022, six months from the launch of the report, BHRRC gave the brands that had responded to the findings in the report the opportunity to provide an update on what engagement had been undertaken since the publishing of our findings, including any investigations, dialogue or remedy that has taken place in relation to AFWA, workers and their representatives.

For brands that had informed BHRRC they were in contact with AFWA and local unions in their initial response to the report, we asked the following questions:

1. In response to the findings in the report, what actions have been taken to identify, prevent and remediate GBVH?
2. How has your company engaged with the designated stakeholder (AFWA) towards remediation, and what have been the concrete outcomes of this engagement?
3. To what extent have steps taken toward remediation and prevention - if any - been decided and implemented in collaboration with the stakeholder?

Of the 10 brands that informed BHRRC they were in contact with AFWA and local unions: 8 informed us of the actions they had taken since the report to identify, prevent and remediate GBVH; 5 reported on how they had engaged with AFWA to work towards remediation and the outcomes of this engagement; and 2 informed us of the extent to which steps towards remediation and prevention had been decided and implemented in collaboration with AFWA.

For brands that had not informed BHRRC they were in contact with AFWA and local unions in their initial responses to the report, we asked the following questions:

1. In response to the findings in the report, what actions have been taken to identify, prevent and remediate GBVH?
2. Has your company undertaken outreach to key stakeholders, including AFWA and/or represented trade unions and worker representatives in the concerned factories, in order to further investigate the allegations?
3. To what extent have steps taken toward remediation and prevention, if any, been decided and implemented, and if so, have these been in collaboration with worker stakeholders?

One company, American Eagle Outfitters, had not informed BHRRC they were in contact with AFWA and local unions. In response to the above questions, American Eagle Outfitters informed us of the actions they had taken since the report to identify, prevent and remediate GBVH, but failed to inform us on how they had engaged with AFWA and/or key represented unions and worker representatives in the concerned factories to work towards remediation and the outcomes of this engagement. The company also did not inform us of the extent to which steps towards remediation and prevention had been decided and implemented in collaboration with worker stakeholders.

The full responses are included below.