“From scissors to sexual harassment, the ILO SIRAYE programme, of which Vision Zero Fund is an integral part, aims to build a better OSH culture in a sector dominated by women.”
Everywhere she looks, there are women: sewing, cutting, checking. The garment industry is highly dependent on women, who make up 80% of all workers in the sector.
Ethiopia’s textile and garment sector is booming.
Employment in the textiles and apparel industry is estimated at 798,752 in 2018 and is forecast to grow 86% through 2025, creating more that 683,000 new direct jobs and almost 868,000 new indirect jobs.
The garment and textile industries are among the priorities of the Ethiopian Government under the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTPII), aiming to lift Ethiopia to the status of middle-income country by 2025. The sector has continued to be relevant and is included in the new 10-year development plan (2021-2030) as a priority sector.
The garment sector employs 62,000 workers nationwide, representing 17.5% of the manufacturing labour force. Most workers are women, comprising 60% of workers in the cutting stage of production and 90% of workers in the sewing stage.
Industrial parks now dot the landscape across the country. Six of them are government-built: Bole Lemi (where Genet works), Hawassa, Mekelle, Jimma, Adama, and Kombolcha. They all focus on the garment and textile sector. And they have changed the lives of thousands of Ethiopians.
Introduced over the past few years, the nine operational industrial parks in Ethiopia have created a total of 64,000 jobs in 2019. According to an ILO report, the sector provides formal jobs primarily to first-time and young job seekers.
An additional six government-planned industrial parks are in the works, and will cover a wider range of sectors including food processing, vehicle assembly, and pharmaceuticals.
Of course, challenges persist. Ethiopia’s private sector development constraints include a shortage of a skilled and productive labour force, access to finance, and trade logistics inefficiencies, among others.
Addressing these constraints will require policy interventions, investment, and technical assistance.
Why OSH is so important to the garment industry
Genet works in an industry that her government believes will make Ethiopia a middle-income country by 2025.
OSH, pass it on
The most common injuries in the factory happen with scissors. Often, workers do not wear finger guards, which can lead to accidents if the scissors slip. Genet herself suffered an injury while she was trimming a button.
She was lucky – the cut could have been much worse. As she learned from the SIRAYE OSH training course, safety at work not only affects productivity and morale; in serious cases, it is also a matter of life or death.
The OSH course covered topics that Genet is now familiar with, like chemical storage and protective equipment. It also prepared her to better explain those important concepts to her co-workers.
One of the key features of this training is its domino effect: once a cohort completes the course, they turn around and pass it on to their colleagues. Genet’s cohort managed to train 100 workers per week.
Things are already changing for the better. There have been fewer accidents, and workers are more knowledgeable about the safety procedures. But there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to build a safety and health culture in the sector.
Some of Genet’s colleagues think that safety measures benefit the factory itself, not the people working there.
“I have a bit of a scar on my middle finger.”
“We try to help them realize these measures are about personal safety, too.”
How COVID-19 changed life in the factory
“I was so scared the first time I heard a case was registered in Ethiopia, because I had heard how bad it was in other countries.”
“I have learned a lot since joining this factory. I feel confident this experience offers me a strong ground for running my own business in the future.”
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These impact stories were produced with the financial support of the European Union.