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India

In Tirupur, a boom town in the southeast Indian state of Tamil Nadu, close to a thousand garment workers or their family members have committed suicide in the past two years. People were driven to take their lives by a combination of grinding poverty, overwork, precarious employment or layoff, crushing debts, and harassment from private money-lenders.

Located some 500 kilometers north-west of Chennai, Tamil Nadu’s capital, Tirupur now produces about 90 percent of all India’s cotton knitwear exports. But those whose toil is fueling this spectacular growth — the hundreds of thousands of textile workers and their families — are living in desperate conditions. So desperate, they are now committing suicide at the rate of 40 to 50 per month.

To read more about this issue, click here

Cambodia

300 garment workers who were dismissed in September 2010 for taking Strike Action for better pay, need your support and solidarity.

The strike lasted for three days and received massive support from workers. On the last day over 200,000 workers from around 90 factories joined the protest. It was called to an end by union leaders after the Ministry of Social Affairs invited them for a meeting to discuss their demands. However, when the garment workers arrived for work they were confronted with mass dismissals of unionised workers who had participated in the strike,  and dozens of legal cases filed against union leaders.

The Clean Clothes Campaign is running a solidarity campaign for the 300 Cambodian sacked garment workers.
To read more about the dispute and to support the campaign, click here