Behind the Seams: Private Labour Ordering and Gender-Based Violence in Lesotho's Garment Factories - A Worker-Centred Legal Ethnography

我的博士研究与我长期关注的两个领域——工人权利和妇女权利——相结合。我的项目旨在探索解决莱索托服装厂性别暴力问题的私人劳工治理方案如何与当地人对性别暴力的理解相互作用。“私人”监管方法，被称为工人驱动的社会责任，以前被用来从根本上消除佛罗里达番茄农场移民农业工人的奴隶般的条件（公平食品计划），并显着减少孟加拉国服装厂致命的不安全建筑条件（孟加拉国协议）。2019年，公平食品计划和孟加拉国协议的活动人士与莱索托的工会和妇女权利组织协调，实施了性别正义计划（GJP）。2021年，GJP开始了其监测和执法方法，包括工人权利培训讲习班和由顾问和律师组成的投诉热线。莱索托报告的基于性别的暴力发生率很高，存在于妇女生活的各个领域。GJP旨在消除服装厂的性别暴力，服装厂约90%的工人是女性，三分之二的工人遭受过上级和男同事的性别暴力。虽然全球性别平等是一个独特的机会，可以检查非法律治理制度在减少工作场所基于性别的暴力方面的影响，但它特别有趣，因为它有可能更普遍地影响人们对生活中基于性别的暴力的看法。由于基于性别的暴力往往与文化上的性别角色交织在一起，这是一种有趣的可能性，可能导致利用私人劳动治理进行更广泛的社会变革。我调查的核心是GJP和当地社区之间微妙的相互作用。与将私人劳动治理视为单向影响的传统模型不同，我的研究将这种关系视为一个动态的、互惠的过程。通过揭示GJP、工人和社区之间的相互作用，我的研究将该计划在莱索托社会文化结构和性别规范中的有效性置于背景下。我采用多方面的研究方法，利用定性方法，强调人种学观察和深入访谈，辅以定量和定性的基于性别的暴力报告档案研究。这种方法组合提供了对GJP影响的详细理解，揭示了该计划中工人经验和看法的复杂性。

My DPhil research joins two of my long-held interests-workers' rights and women's rights. My project aims to explore how a private labour governance programme addressing gender-based violence in Lesotho's garment factories interacts with local understandings of gender-based violence. The 'private' regulatory method, called Worker-Driven Social Responsibility, has been used previously to essentially eliminate slave-like conditions of migrant agricultural workers in Florida's tomato farms (the Fair Food Program) and significantly reduce fatally unsafe building conditions in Bangladesh's garment factories (the Bangladesh Accord). In 2019, the Fair Food Program and Bangladesh Accord's campaigners coordinated with unions and women's rights groups in Lesotho to implement the Gender Justice Program (GJP). In 2021, the GJP began its monitoring and enforcement methods, including a training workshop for workers' rights and a complaint hotline staffed by counselors and lawyers. Lesotho has notably high rates of reported gender-based violence, present in all spheres of women's lives. The GJP aims to eliminate gender-based violence in garment factories where approximately 90% of workers are women and two-thirds have experienced gender-based violence by superiors and male co-workers.While the GJP is a unique opportunity to examine the effects of a non-legal governance regime in reducing gender-based violence in workplaces, it is especially interesting because of its potential to affect people's perceptions of gender-based violence in their lives more generally. Since gender-based violence is often intertwined with culturally informed gender roles, this is an intriguing possibility that could lead to the use of private labour governance for broader social change. Central to my investigation is the nuanced interplay between the GJP and the local community. Unlike conventional models that perceive private labour governance as a one-way influence, my research examines this relationship as a dynamic, reciprocal process. By unraveling the interactions between the GJP, workers, and the community, my study contextualises the programme's effectiveness within the sociocultural fabric of and the gender norms within Lesotho. Employing a multifaceted research approach, I utilise qualitative methods, emphasising ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews, complemented by quantitative and qualitative archival research of gender-based violence reports. This methodological mix provides a detailed understanding of the GJP's impact, shedding light on the intricacies of workers' experiences and perceptions within the programme.