Open Letter to Victoria’s Secret from the Asia Floor Wage Alliance - Women’s Leadership Committee (AFWA-WLC)
Pushpalatha was a 45-year-old garment worker, a mother, and a woman whose labor sustained global fashion brands like yours. On October 10, 2025, she became ill at work and pleaded to leave the factory for medical care. Instead of receiving compassion and protection, she was forced to continue working until the end of her shift. Only then was she taken to the hospital, where she died a few hours later. This was not an accident. This was a consequence of a workplace system that treats women’s bodies as expendable and prioritizes production targets over human life.
As women trade union leaders representing garment workers across Asia, we recognize this tragedy as part of a broader pattern of gendered exploitation in garment supply chains. Women workers are routinely denied rest, medical care, and dignity. They are silenced through fear, intimidation, and retaliation when they speak out. Pushpalatha’s death exposes the violent cost of this model of production.
Read the full open letter here: English
AFWA-WLC Statement on International Women’s Day
On this International Women’s Day, the Asia Floor Wage Alliance-Women’s Leadership Committee stands in solidarity to demand justice and dignity for women garment workers across Asia. We are women trade union leaders from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka – representing millions of garment workers whose labor sustains one of the world’s most profitable industries.
Women workers are the backbone of the global garment industry. We cut, stitch, finish, and pack the clothes that brands sell for billions. Yet in our workplaces, too many women face gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH), poverty wages, inhumane working hours, repression of Freedom of Association, and sudden factory closures that strip us of our livelihoods overnight.
Today, we do not speak only of injustice, but with hope, and with defiance – because women garment workers across Asia are organizing, demanding change, and building solutions that work.
Read in: English
Oversight Committee Statement on the Achievements of The Dindigul Agreement
A statement by the Oversight Committee on the conclusion of the Dindigul Agreement, outlining its achievements and lessons in preventing and combating gender-based violence and harassment.
Read in English
Rejecting the Determination of the 2026 Provincial Minimum Wage (UMP): New Formula, Old Poverty
AFWA Indonesia formally rejects the 2026 Provincial Minimum Wage (UMP) in this position statement. The government’s new formula—which relies on macroeconomic indicators such as inflation and economic growth—is a continuation of the Omnibus Law regime designed to suppress wages to boost investment competitiveness. It fails to account for the actual cost of social reproduction, such as nutritious food, housing, and healthcare, effectively trapping workers in structural poverty and forcing them into debt to survive. In contrast, AFWA advocates for a Living Wage of IDR 9,003,687, calculated using a family-based methodology that prioritises human dignity and 3,000 calories per day over market tolerance. The statement calls for an end to the "race to the bottom" by demanding that global brands and the state recognise a living wage as a fundamental human right rather than a flexible economic variable.
Read our statement: English | Bahasa Indonesia
Worker Rights in Crisis: AFWA Stands with Sri Lanka as Cyclone Ditwah pushes Garment Workers into Danger and Deepening Insecurity
Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA) stands with garment workers in Sri Lanka who are now living through the devastation of Cyclone Ditwah. The floods and landslides caused by the cyclone have claimed the lives of more than 350 people (and counting) in Sri Lanka. Entire worker settlements are under water. Homes flooded so fast that people barely had time to gather their belongings before being moved to relief camps. Streets, access roads, and surrounding areas submerged overnight, cutting workers off from food, clean water, transport, electricity, and communication.
Read our statement: English | Sinhala | Tamil