Kanchana RUWANPURA

"Garments without Guilt? Global labour justice and ethical codes in Sri Lankan Apparels"

Sri Lanka Joint Apparel Association Forum’s (JAAF) foundational premise is that it produces ‘Garments without Guilt’ and makes claims of positioning itself at the vanguard of ethical production. This posturing is quite in contrast to its apparel producing South Asian neighbours, where media exposure constantly reveals exploitative labour conditions, factory fires and/or factory collapses, often with devastating consequences to the lives of workers. These claims made by JAAF acknowledges how Sri Lanka’s strong social development foundation and national labour legislation system offer it a solid foundation to make claims around ‘garments without guilt’. Equally, the industry itself has made great strides, with investment in state-of-the-art eco-friendly factories, for instance, illustrative of its future aspirations for growth. Since the end of the war, Sri Lankan apparel investment expansion to former North and East of post-war Sri Lanka signal its commitment for the long haul. Within this post-war context, it is important to appreciate how workers understand their factory jobs. My project aims to focus on how labourers interpret discourses around global and social justice claims in a post- war setting, where employment creation within the apparel sector is offered as a panacea towards peace and reconciliation. During my time as an France-ILO Chair Fellow, I want to bring together my decade long research on the apparel sector of Sri Lanka as it makes the transition to a post- war context with continued political volatility and violence.