From the humming sewing machines of Dhaka to the rattling looms of Phnom Penh, the global fashion industry quietly thrives — while the women at its heart continue to bear the heaviest burden. In Asia, where 75 % of the world’s garment-sector labour takes place and 60-80 % of those workers are women, the bright promise of a job too often masks a darker reality of exploitation.
For many of these women, garment work was supposed to offer a path to economic independence — a chance to escape rural poverty, send children to school, or help their community. Instead, what they get is low pay, dangerous conditions, and near-total lack of rights. According to a new 2025 report by Amnesty International, despite forming the backbone of the garment workforce, women routinely suffer a persistent wage gap compared with men, often earn poverty-level wages far below what is needed for basic necessities, and frequently live under precarious employment contracts that deny them access to health care, safe housing, food or education.
In many factories, the denial of fundamental labour rights plays a central role. The right to unionize is suppressed through a tangled web of state regulation, employer intimidation, and union-busting. In several South Asian countries — including Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka — whistle-blowers, union organizers or even peaceful protesters have been met with violence or legal harassment instead of protection.
In Bangladesh, the world’s second-largest garment exporter, the gulf between the value of what workers produce and what they receive has never felt more stark. Over the past year, more than 155 factories have shut down, laying off thousands of mostly female workers — many unable even to recover their back-wages or severance. Even when factories remain open, pay is often so low that workers must rely on compulsory overtime just to make ends meet. In a country where inflation bites hard, this wage-to-cost imbalance can mean constant food insecurity, mental stress, and chronic ill-health.
Over in Cambodia, garment workers are staring into the double-threat of low wages and shrinking job security. A 2025 survey by CNV Internationaal covering nearly 2,900 workers across 98 factories found that 99 % of respondents earned below the “living wage” threshold. Most rely on overtime — a dangerous dependency that becomes fragile the moment orders dry up. Many workers say they have to sacrifice essentials like healthcare and nutritious food to survive. Now, looming US tariffs and faltering foreign investment threaten to shutter factories, casting a shadow over the future of Cambodia’s female garment workforce and leaving countless households hovering on the brink of crisis.
Working women in this industry also face an under-discussed — but deeply pernicious — problem: gender-based violence and harassment at the workplace. According to Amnesty, sexual harassment, bullying and even physical abuse are alarmingly common in factories run largely by male supervisors. Women from marginalized groups — whether because of caste (e.g., Dalit women in India), ethnicity, religion, or migration status — are especially vulnerable. Maternity benefits and childcare support are rarely provided, leaving working mothers in a painful Catch-22: work and risk exploitation, or stay home — and lose both income and dignity.
In Khmer one might call this “ការបំភ័យស្រ្តី” (kā pŏmphei srey — “women’s exploitation”), in Bengali “নারীর অধিকার হরণ” (nārir odhikār horon — “denial of women’s rights”), in Hindi “महिला श्रमिकों का शोषण” (mahila śramikon kā śōṣaṇ — “exploitation of female workers”). But behind every phrase is a real person — a mother, a sister, a daughter — stitching the clothes we wear, yet unable to afford a decent meal herself.
Calls for reform are growing louder. Rights groups urge governments and multinational brands to guarantee a real living wage — at minimum aligned with the standards of the Asia Floor Wage Alliance — and to legally guarantee the right to organize, maternity benefits, safe work environments, and access to justice for survivors of harassment. The path forward demands not only legal reforms, but a radical rethinking of the price we pay for “fast fashion,” and a moral reckoning with the human cost of cheap clothes.
For readers who buy garments with casual convenience — the next time you scroll through your wardrobe or browse a new fashion collection — remember this: behind those racks, catwalks, and glossy adverts, there are women whose lives are sewn into every seam. If the global fashion industry hopes to claim moral legitimacy, the voices of those women must no longer be ignored.
Spicy Auntie here, my dears — and today I’m tying my chili-red scarf a little tighter because this topic stings like a needle jabbed by a rushed factory floor. Fast fashion… and the women who fast, not out of spiritual devotion but because their wages are so low they skip meals just to keep their children fed. If that doesn’t raise your blood pressure faster than a broken sewing pedal, come closer — Auntie will open those factory gates for you.
Imagine rows of women, shoulders curled from twelve hours of stitching, eyes dry, bellies emptier than the pockets of the brands that claim to “empower women” with pastel girl-boss slogans. These sisters are the true engines of Asian economic “miracles.” They hold entire export industries together with their calloused fingers — and are rewarded with crumbs. A gender pay gap wide enough to fit a shipping container, harassment from supervisors who treat them like disposable machine parts, and zero labour rights when they dare to say enough.
Let’s talk about gender-based violence — not the kind whispered in fancy seminars, but the daily humiliations that strip dignity thread by thread. Shouting, threatening, groping, firing pregnant women, denying bathroom breaks, forcing overtime until the bones themselves protest. Auntie has walked through some of these factories. The air inside trembles with fear, exhaustion, and the tight-lipped solidarity of women who have no choice but to endure.
And those who try to organize? In many countries, management behaves as if “union” were a dirty word. Leaders are threatened, blacklisted, or pressured into silence. Some brands pretend this isn’t happening, hiding behind audits softer than silk scarves. Others casually shift production from one country to another to avoid accountability — as if workers were just interchangeable buttons.
In Khmer, they call exploitation of women ការបំភ័យស្រ្តី (kā pŏmphei srey). In Bahasa Indonesia, penindasan perempuan. In Hindi, महिला उत्पीड़न. Different words, same story. Same bruises. Same empty pay envelopes.
But Spicy Auntie refuses to let this story stay behind locked factory gates. If Asia is the beating heart of global fashion, then these millions of women are its pulse — steady, strong, and long overdue for respect. Consumers must push brands harder. Governments must enforce laws instead of flirting with factory owners. And global brands must stop balancing their profit margins on the bent backs of women who deserve so much more.
My loves, the next time you buy something “fast,” pause. Someone paid the real price — and she did not choose to fast.