Thousands of mostly women garment workers in Lesotho who produce jeans and knitwear for the global market are standing up to gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) at their factories, homes and communities after participating in education and awareness training, part of a pathbreaking, worker-centered program negotiated in part by the Solidarity Center. And, as a result of the trainings, they now are taking on new leadership roles in their unions.
“What we’ve seen is workers not just talking about what’s happening in the workplace but taking those conversations to the community and being involved in conversations around changing laws governing marriage and property,” says Solidarity Center Africa Regional Director Chris Johnson. “Since the workshops and investigations of misconduct, workers see that this is real, and also have demanded more from their own unions.”
Lesotho unions and women’s rights organizations joined with the Solidarity Center, NGOs and the employer and brands in Lesotho to achieve a dignified workplace for women garment workers. Credit: Solidarity Center / Shawna Bader-Blau
The program stems from an unprecedented 2019 agreement in which Lesotho-based unions and women’s rights groups, major fashion brands and international worker rights organizations, including the Solidarity Center, negotiated an agreement with the factory owner, Nien Hsing Textiles, to end rampant GBVH at multiple factories in Lesotho.
As part of the program, which launched in 2021 following pandemic-related delays, garment workers also helped craft a Program Code of Conduct and have access to a complaint and investigation process independent of the employer.
The agreement is legally binding, a key reason for its success. Crucially, it recognizes that the freedom to form unions and act collectively is a prerequisite for other elements of the program. It protects union organizing and prohibits anti-union retaliation, addressing years of hostility by management toward the factory unions, which are one of the most powerful tools to combat GBVH.
Garment Workers in New Roles as Community Activists
The interactive workshops, led by union leaders and women’s rights advocates, facilitated discussion of GBVH and workers’ role in changing the culture in the factories to end harassment and abuse. Some 6,500 workers, managers and supervisors in several factories have participated in the education and training sessions.
The training process itself was transforming, says Nhlanhla Mabizela, Solidarity Center field program specialist for Lesotho.
Some of the union women trainers had never spoken before a group, “but through this program, we were asking them to facilitate and talk about something that was very difficult and we were also asking them to stand in front of people and talk about a very closed issue,” Mabizela says. Now, they “have gained confidence through this program.
“They can stand in their full presence and be able to address people and talk about fundamental issues that need to be addressed.”
Even as the incidence of GBVH in the factories has been substantially reduced and perpetrators punished, garment workers have taken the information beyond their workplaces to their homes and communities, where they are championing their right to safe environments. They have internalized the curricula and make examples that people can relate to in their own communities, Mabizela says.
Says Johnson: “Women are saying, ‘We are employed by largest private-sector employer in the country that recognizes our humanity. That should not stop once we go past the gates of the factory.’”
Women garment workers are now publicly linking the scourge of gender-based violence and harassment at the workplace with a 1903 law that defines women as minors with no inheritance rights. “They took this issue—in a conservative, very patriarchal society—and went on a radio show to talk about how bad the law is,” he says.
Mabizela says he has heard garment workers talk about how the process has given them a voice, telling him, “I am a person today because of this program.”
“Now they see themselves as worthy,” he says. “They are now comfortable dressing the way they dress, walking the way they walk. They were used to conforming to how ladies are supposed to be. Now they are embracing who they are.”
Women Now Leading Their Unions
With knowledge of their rights and their success in acting collectively to protect those rights when challenging inequality in the workplace, more and more women are taking leadership roles in their unions, standing for union election and actively participating in decision-making.
Although 85 percent of garment workers in Lesotho are women, union leadership traditionally has been comprised of male leaders with experience in mining and heavy industry. Since the training, “workers have demanded more from their own unions,” says Johnson. The three unions involved in the program all recently held elections, with women taking key leadership positions, including president and first president.
With unions more fully representative of their membership, women leaders have helped strengthen the Lesotho union movement and, in doing so, are generating stronger connections with South African trade unions.
With the Solidarity Center support, garment workers from Lesotho met their counterparts in South Africa and they will now work together to address the challenges of border factories. As companies seek to pay lower wages and fewer benefits, garment factories are setting up short-term facilities in South African border towns where regulations are minimal. By working together, unions from the two countries can build worker activism in these areas to demand decent work.
“South African unions are clear about their desire to work with their counterparts in Lesotho,” says Johnson. “That’s in response to the new level of union activism in Lesotho.”
Ending Gendered Brutality, Building Democracy
Striking workers at Lesotho garment factories were attacked and several killed by police in 2021.
So, when the U.S. Embassy asked the Lesotho government about its response to state violence and human trafficking and the government did not respond, garment workers joined with the police corrections associations to meet with government officials. The stakes were high—without a response, the United States could delist Lesotho from the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a trade preference agreement covering the country’s textile industry. Their successful intervention—union members pointed out that losing AGOA would crush jobs and generate more crime—resulted in a government response and Lesotho’s continued participation in AGOA.
“In Lesotho, we are seeing that as people grow in confidence, they have conversations with their comrades that is influencing how the trade union is viewed and in the power the trade union has in society,” says Mabizela. People in communities “are witnessing how a trade union is concerned about the livelihood of society at large. That on its own is a very powerful and very significant role.”
As the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign gets underway, women trade unionists worldwide are building on their momentum to end sexual harassment and gender violence at the workplace.
In Georgia, for instance, the Georgian Trade Union Confederation (GTUC) “pays huge attention to awareness-raising activities on gender-based violence and harassment in the workplace,” says Raisa Liparteliani, GTUC deputy chairperson.
A key GTUC focus is pushing for government ratification of Convention 190, the International Labor Organization (ILO) treaty addressing GBVH. Over the past year, GTUC, a Solidarity Center partner, created an accessible brochure explaining C190 and distributed it among workers and employers. Together with the Infrastructure Construction Companies’ Association, the confederation developed a GBVH train-the-trainer program for managers and human relations specialists in the industry.
GTUC’s work in strengthening national anti-discrimination clauses and more clearly defining sexual harassment in the country’s labor code has resulted in a big step forward for government ratification of C190, which now is in a high-level action plan.
“GTUC will continue a large-scale campaign for ratification C190, which is an efficient tool to reduce existing gender inequalities in the Georgian labor market and ensure access to equal, decent working conditions for all workers in Georgia, including those working informally,” says Liparteliani.
The annual 16 Days campaign, launched in 1991 by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL), is now an internationally recognized time to highlight gender-based violence and starts November 25. It culminates on December 10, International Human Rights Day. (Check out the organization’s Action Menu for 16 Days campaign.)
Union Activist Mobilize Around C190
Since ILO adoption of C190 in 2019, union leaders have conducted extensive education and awareness training among members, a process that has mobilized members to confront GBVH at their workplaces through collective bargaining and champion ratification of C190. The convention must be ratified by individual governments to be in force in each country. So far, 22 countries have ratified it, including Albania, Argentina, Nigeria and South Africa.
The ILO, which includes representatives of workers, governments and employers, adopted C190 after women trade unionists and feminist activists worked for more than a decade for its passage in a campaign led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the Solidarity Center and other labor allies.
“With this convention, we’re trying to address violence that is geared toward workers,” says Brenda Modise. “It doesn’t matter whether you are a man, a woman, old, young, LGBTQ community or anyone, but we are addressing violence and harassment in the world of work against all workers.” Modise, a social justice officer with the domestic workers union, Federation of Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA), spoke with Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau on the latest Solidarity Center Podcast. The episode also features authors of a new book, “Stopping Gender-Based Violence and Harassment at Work: The Campaign for an ILO Convention.”
On the Solidarity Center Podcast, co-authors Jane Pillinger and Robin Runge share how union women who work at factories, on farms, in restaurants, taxis and offices successfully campaigned for C190 and describe the powerful movement they created with human rights organizations, feminist organizations, disability rights organizations and others around the world. The episode includes a clip from an earlier interview with Modise, who describes her experiences on the front lines of the campaign.
The survey, commissioned by the country’s Ministry of Employment and Labor Relations, found the majority of violence and harassment at work occurs in the informal sector, where women workers are especially vulnerable, working in homes as domestic workers, in markets as vendors and in agriculture.
Recent union campaigns by Solidarity Center partners among agricultural workers in Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia are seeking to end the rampant sexual harassment and violence women experience in crowded and unsafe trucks and other forms of transport they must take to reach the fields.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, women, particularly those in the informal economy, were especially vulnerable to GBVH at the workplace. At the recent ITUC Congress, the Solidarity Center convened a panel of union activists who discussed how the pandemic affected women in the world of work and discussed strategies to increase social protections and expand them to workers who have not previously been covered, especially marginalized groups.
Speaking on the panel, Liparteliani said that in 2022, the GTUC “developed research with the support of Solidarity Center on impact of the pandemic on women in three sectors: textile, service and health care,” recommending social protection with a special focus on gender-based violence and harassment.
Caroline Khamati Mugalla, executive director of the East African Trade Union Confederation (EATUC) and Rosana Fernandes, leader of the Chemical Workers Union of São Paulo, Brazil also spoke on the panel, A New Social Contract for an Inclusive, Equitable Recovery.
When women agricultural workers in Morocco joined to form their first union and negotiate a contract that established gender equality and prohibited sexual harassment and other forms of gender-based violence on the job, their collective action followed years of Solidarity Center training and support.
This GivingTuesday offers a chance to support violence-free workplaces—and all Solidarity Center efforts to ensure workers everywhere have dignity on the job. Giving Tuesday is not just one day—it is a global social movement that fuels more generosity in service to building a more just and equitable world.
“All of these things depend on the support of individuals like you who believe that labor rights are human rights, that all workers deserve dignity—and that unions make this real for workers,” says Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau.
For more than 10 years, union women who work at factories, on farms, in restaurants, taxis and offices campaigned for an international treaty to end gender-based violence at work. In 2019, they achieved a huge success when the International Labor Organization (ILO) adopted Convention 190 to end violence and harassment at work.
Authors of a new book share these women’s stories on the latest Solidarity Center Podcast and describe the powerful movement they created collaborating with human rights, feminist, disability rights and other organizations around the world.
“These are garment workers, domestic workers, agricultural workers from all over the world, and have been told their whole lives, ‘Well, you can’t do that. You can’t negotiate a global treaty.’ It’s absolutely false.”
Along with Runge and Jane Pillinger, co-authors of “Stopping Gender-Based Violence and Harassment at Work: The Campaign for an ILO Convention,” the episode highlights South African union activist Brenda Modise, who describes her experiences on the front lines of the campaign
“The thing about this convention is that it brings women together across the world, irrespective of your age, irrespective of your culture, irrespective of all the things. It doesn’t matter whether you speak English, you speak Portuguese, you speak French, it brings us together. As soon as you say C190, it brings women together and it makes a force,” says Modise.
“One of our main conclusions is that really remarkable things happen when women stand in their own power,” said Pillinger.
Adds Runge: “Only through collective action with freedom of association and collective bargaining is it really possible to truly prevent and eradicate gender-based violence and harassment in the world of work.”
As the world witnesses some of the greatest challenges to democratic governments since the 1930s, unions offer a strong and essential counter to the trend, according to Cornell University Professor Angela Cornell.
“Many studies show that organized labor has played critical role in developing and defending democracy. The organized working class was the primary carrier of democracy,” Cornell said today at the International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network (ILAW) Conference opening plenary.
More than 130 labor lawyers from 42 countries meeting October 7–9 also focused their final day on developing plans for Network’s coming years.
The Solidarity Center launched the ILAW Network in December 2018 as a global hub for worker rights lawyers to facilitate innovative litigation, help spread the adoption of pro-worker legislation and defeat anti-worker laws.
Cornell listed the ways in which unions fuel democracy, including by providing a counterviling role to corporate power.
Further, said Cornell, “new research on the role of unions and in building solidarity among their members demonstrates the ways in which unions can bridge racial and national divides. Union members are less likely to support extreme views.”
Economic inequality is a destabiizing influence in most countries, Cornell said, and unions decrease inequality.
“Unions have been instrumental in the passsage of labor protections and the social safety net, including social security, minimum wage and overtime, workplace heath and safety and medical leave, among others.”
Unions Build Democracy in Latin America, Africa
Ken Roberts, a professor at Cornell University and book contributor, overviewed how unions have been bulwarks of democracy throughout Latin America.
“Labor has played a central role in trying to restore citizenship rights,” said Roberts. Since the 1960s–1980s, when unions suffered setbacks during military dictatorships and neoliberal reforms that prioritized the interests of the wealthy over working people, the key challenge has been to build broad coalitions, he said.
ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow
By joining with feminist movements, indigineous communities and territorially-based urban community networks, unions have created strong and successful coaltions. Since late 1990s as part of social pushback against neoliberal model, 14 countries have elected progressive governments and labor has been an important part of moving this unprecedented number of elections, he said.
Most recently, unions were part of successful coalitions that elected progressive governments in Honduras and Colombia and are constructing broad democratic fronts against new challenges from ethnonationalist and extreme conservative groups.
In Africa, “more often than not, unions were the only force fighting decolonization,” said Evance Kalula, chair of International Labor Organization (ILO) Committee on Freedom of Association and emeritus prof of law at the University of Capetown. “Formal and informal collaboration between unions as agents of change and nationalist movements.”
Kalula and co-author Chanda Chungu, contributed the chapter on “African Perspectives on Labor Rights as Enhancers of Democratic Governance.”
Julia Lopez Lopez, a professor at the University of Barcelona, described how unions are standing up to corporations that are using the new model of app-based work to exploit transportaton workers.
“The case of transport sector is one of the cases that show unions are trying to create new strategies against market intervention against multinational efforts to liberalize labor rights,” she said.
Lopez recently participated in research projects on precarious work and social rights led by the Working Lives Research Institute.
Closing the Conference, Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), overviewed the challenges facing workers and their advocates and pointed to recent legal successes as well, including an agreement that the ITUC and ILO achieved with the Qatar government that ensures more rights for migrant workers, including the freedom to leave their jobs and seek alternative employment.
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A key GTUC focus is pushing for government ratification of 
“With this convention, we’re trying to address violence that is geared toward workers,” says Brenda Modise. “It doesn’t matter whether you are a man, a woman, old, young, LGBTQ community or anyone, but we are addressing violence and harassment in the world of work against all workers.” Modise, a social justice officer with the domestic workers union, Federation of Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA), spoke with Solidarity Center Executive Director Shawna Bader-Blau on the latest 
During the COVID-19 pandemic, women, particularly those in the informal economy, were especially vulnerable to GBVH at the workplace. At the recent ITUC Congress, the Solidarity Center convened a panel of union activists who discussed how the pandemic affected women in the world of work and discussed strategies to increase social protections and expand them to workers who have not previously been covered, especially marginalized groups.
This GivingTuesday offers a chance to support violence-free workplaces—and all Solidarity Center efforts to ensure workers everywhere have dignity on the job. Giving Tuesday is not just one day—it is a global social movement that fuels more generosity in service to building a more just and equitable world.
“Many studies show that organized labor has played critical role in developing and defending democracy. The organized working class was the primary carrier of democracy,” Cornell said today at the International Lawyers Assisting Workers Network (