A lot of women in Kyrgyzstan are working as seamstresses in very harsh conditions. The issue of working conditions in private businesses has been around for over a decade. Seamstresses work in small rooms stuffed with sewing machines and people, sewing day and night for prices like 20-30 soms for a piece of easy-made clothes. Now it’s changing a little bit, at least the underground businesses are coming out which should make them a little more worker-friendly due to required adherence to the labor code (which is actually a nice document with a lot of provisions that would surprise even sophisticated unionists). According to MSN newspaper, the number of state patents for sewing businesses purchased in 2007 doubled and constituted 38000 bringing 8 million soms (220,000 dollars) income to the state. Hopefully the conditions will improve for seamstresses and the experience will help other businesses to be public as well. Interestingly enough most of the sewing products are sold in Russia and Kazakhstan and I am sure that it says ‘made in Turkey’ etc on the labels.
Kyrgyz seamstresses come out of the shadows
January 24, 2008 · 4 Comments
Categories: Gender and business
Tagged: shadow economy
4 responses so far ↓
Global Voices Online » Kyrgyzstan: Seamstresses come out of the shadows // January 25, 2008 at 10:59 am |
[...] sheds light on women in Kyrgyzstan working as seamstresses in very harsh conditions — in small [...]
Global Voices amin´ny teny malagasy » Kyrgyzstan: Mpanjaitra navoaka avy tamin’ny maizina // January 28, 2008 at 8:19 pm |
[...] no manely ny hazavana azon'ny vehivavy any Kyrgyzstan toy ny voatsindry hazo lena (teo aloha). Tsy [...]
easymademillions // January 31, 2008 at 10:25 am |
According to me Seamstress are really making a huge profit towards the growth of the nation as mentioned in this article. They are poorly paid in the past days but now these seamstress are no more poor as they are coming out of shatters and looking at the developing world.
Postmodernist // February 7, 2008 at 3:13 pm |
Oh yes, the Kyrgyzstani ‘Legprom’ industry had been striving for a legal status for many years – working as a shadow enterprise and putting fake lables on products was really unprofitable.
Now they can do better marketing and earn fair money as the ‘Made in Kyrgyzstan’ brand is making its way to international markets: http://www.legprom.kg/
Viva la Kyrgyzstan!