Women Uninterrupted is a podcast by The Hindu which hosts conversations between women and about women. In Season 7, we talk to women who contribute to the informal economy. The first episode features a former nun - later a survivor of domestic violence - who has worked many odd jobs.
She now represents over 12,000 low-wage women workers in the garment industry. Host: Anna Thomas Guests: Thivya Rakini & Tasmin Kurien Production: Anna Thomas for The Scribbling Pad Stitching for the World; Struggling at Home In India’s textile hubs—from Tiruppur to Bengaluru to Gurgaon—thousands of women have spent over a decade stitching clothes for some of the world’s richest fashion brands, helping turn their CEOs into billionaires. Yet they earn just around ₹8,000–12,000 a month, producing over 1,000 garments daily while working 10-hour shifts, six days a week.
They have no savings, live in debt, and are often just one crisis away from hunger or homelessness. In fact, their children may now be struggling even more. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, many children of garment workers have dropped out of school.
Some have ended up in brick kilns or doing manual scavenging—driven there by family debt and financial distress, when fashion brands suddenly cancelled orders or delayed payments by months. For over a decade, wages have stagnated, even as CEOs of fashion brands earn in minutes what women workers earn in a year. Exploitative purchasing practices by global fashion brands have trig.
