Since 2013, Traid has partnered with READ to support the very poorest garment workers in Tamil Nadu, South India who are most hidden in the global supply chain and facing the additional challenges of interstate migration in the Erode and Tiruppur districts. This region is a major hub for knitwear manufacturing, with over 1,600 cotton spinning mills and countless factories supplying major high street brands.

Migrant workers in these factories often endure harsher conditions than local employees, including unsafe working environments, exploitation, and limited access to healthcare and education. Far from home, they live precariously in rented hostels and settlements near or inside mills. Migrant workers account for around 30% of Tamil Nadu’s garment workforce, and most lack official documentation, making them vulnerable to trafficking and gender-based violence.

One of the biggest challenges for both local and migrant workers is accessing their Employer’s Provident Fund (PF)—India’s mandatory government pension scheme. Workers can draw on PF for expenses like housing loans or children’s education before retirement, yet only around 400 mills and factories in the region are registered for PF. Many workers are unaware of their rights or registration numbers, which enables malpractice such as record falsification.

READ’s project addresses these issues head-on, working with workers, factories, and government departments to advocate for fairer livelihoods, including taking legal action against non-compliant employers when necessary.

Over the next three years, the project will continue to directly support garment workers and their families through practical interventions to create pathways for very excluded workers to access help, entitlements and support. This includes:

Creating safer work practices. At the industry level, READ will work with employers, workers and trade unions to continue its ongoing strategy of creating ‘model mills’ which follow basic labour laws such as having an Internal Complaints Committee – a forum for workers to get grievances resolved. The project will also set up an additional 15 ‘model’ textile mills, bringing the total to 45. These mills operate safety training for all employees and employers and ensure compliance with Provident Fund regulations.

READ continues to improve women’s workplace safety and knowledge of rights by operating a gender-based violence prevention campaign with aims to reach 3,000 people. Garment working women will be supported to join the Garments and General Workers Trade Union building its membership base by strengthening links through village and factory Workers Groups, building organisational capacity to take up legal advocacy for the community.

Access to services. Tactics to support workers include significantly increasing the registration of migrant workers by using an app which launched at the beginning of 2021, and directing 1000 workers to use the Migrant Workers Digital Help Desk to register grievances and get support in resolving them. This project will also provide weekly mobile “e-sevai” units, internet-equipped vehicles, to reach remote settlements, so workers can access digital government service portals assisting them with Aadhaar card enrolment, opening bank accounts, and supporting their Provident Fund enquiries.

Health and wellbeing initiatives. Traid will support 720 workers with better health, hygiene and nutrition across 24 community health meetings and 6 medical camps including vaccination and substance abuse programmes

Education support for children. Extreme poverty also means that many migrant worker’s children end up working to supplement the family income, with few opportunities for education. Our funding will support 100 migrant children to attend evening study centres with Hindi-speaking tutors, as many cannot speak Tamil, and provide 300 scholarships for garment workers’ children who cannot afford school.

This agile NGO works tirelessly with local communities, garment factories, spinning mills, trade unions, brands, and state and national government to address serious labour rights abuses and we are proud to continue building on this work to support thousands more of the most disenfranchised garment workers and their families into better livelihoods, education, and incomes. If you would like to support Traid’s work donate here.