Promoting Gender Equity in India's Garment Sector

SAI's RAGS Project continues at full steam to raise awareness and reduce gender discrimination in the Indian ready-made garment sector. As of April 2013, more than 450 individuals from over 170 factories in Bangalore, New Delhi and Tirupur have participated in the RAGS Project training course - "Management Systems to Address Gender Discrimination." 

SAI's India Program Director Rishi Sher Singh, along with local trainers, has led this major effort since the project started in December 2010. "It is always an emotional experience delivering the gender sensitization trainings for RAGS," said Mr. Singh. "In each workshop, there have been intense levels of participant interaction and shared learning. We are committed to continuing these trainings and to play a humble role in the broader effort to increase gender sensitivity in India."   In one of the exercises in the trainings, participants were asked to express their understanding of gender discrimination. One participant, a woman, remarked, " the difference in education causes discrimination...women have no freedom and men have all the freedom...it's pure foolishness and also a form of sexual domination -why must women have to always obey men?"
  In addition to the classroom training, the RAGS Project recently launched an onsite factory training program on gender discrimination- "Building a Cross-Functional Team." Registration is still open, but limited to 30 ready-made garment supplier factories in India. The onsite training focuses on how to develop management systems within a factory to reduce gender discrimination, and works across departments and with workers within a factory to ensure an integrated effort for social compliance. Register for the training on SAI's website - http://bit.ly/14HwYdE.
  We are grateful for its funding to UK AID's DFID. Special thanks to Primark and Gap Inc. for supporting this program and effectively encouraging their supplier factories to participate.
  To learn more about SAI's RAGS Project, visit sa-intl.org/indiarags. View photos from the RAGS Project trainings on SAI's Facebook Page. For more information contact Mr. Singh at rishi@sa-intl.org   About the RAGS Project "RAGS: Improving Social Standards in the Indian Ready-Made Garment Sector” is a program of SAI to improve working conditions of workers by reducing gender discrimination and improving factory level processes of engagement with homeworkers in supply chain. The program is supported by UKAID from the Department for International Development (DFID). Activities will focus on classroom and onsite trainings of suppliers and subcontractors on gender discrimination issues and engagement with homeworkers.