[free trade zone' Conditions for (mostly Tamill women…]

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free trade zone' Conditions for (mostly Tamill women workers on the tea plantations in ONE hundred women workers were interviewed. 80 were from garment factories (31 from large factories, 32 from medium size ones, and 17 from small ones). The other twenty women workers were from non-garment factories.

Of these, 14 were from 'low prestige' factories, so characterised due to the 'dirty' nature of the material processed or used in manufacturing the final product, i.e. cashew and rubber processing.

The other six were from nongarment factories which did not have such associations.

Seventeen women were also interviewed from outside the Free Trade Zone, mainly from garment factories in the southern suburbs of Greater Colombo.

The labour in the FTz factories included basic assembling or tailoring and at most semi-skilled machine-minding. It did not really take more than a few weeks for a workers to acquire the 'skills' In the non-garment factories, other than low prestige' ones, 70% of the women workers we interviewed 'were in a fishing gear factory. Here women workers performed a monotonous and very labour-intensive task of attaching fishing hooks to a fishing line at regular intervals or small steel weights to Sri Lanka are even worse than in the In the other non-garment tactories the work was not as labour intensive as in the fishing gear factory. Yet they were basically assembly line or semi-skilled machine-minding jobs. There is hardly a change or rotation of work.

In Sri Lanka, like other Asian countries, there is a social and cultural conditioning that this type of monotonous and repetitive work is fit only for women. This is neatly expressed by the reference to the Free Trade Zone as 'Isthripura'. (Though this can be literally translated as women's town, the subtle connotation is a town of women of easy virtue).

Productivity targets as set by investors had been met in 75% Free Trade Zone. interviewea mentioned as recurring ailments: chest pain; pain in the joints, knees, shoulders and spine; and strain in the eyes.

Many workers at garment factories in the Free Trade Zone suffer from laryngitis, being exposed to tiny textile particles and dust while cutting layers of cloth with a fast guillotine machine.

All the workers interviewed from cashew and rubber processing factories suffer burns on their faces and hands by handling certain commodities. Sometimes materials splashed into their eyes and many developed problems in their eyesight. They were also very unhappy about the unpleasant odour about them consequent to them handling the raw materials.

83% of workers in the large garment factories complained of their health having deteriorated since joining the FTZ, 82% in the small garments factories, and 100% in non-garments factories. A very high percentage of workers complain of fatigue, especially in large garment factories.

In some tactories, workers were allowed to use the toilet only during tea and meal breaks. There have been incidents of high fever and urinary infection, due to stagnation of urine.

Certain young women workers, specially those coming from out-stations, fall easy victims to sexual exploitation by their superiors. The incidence of venereal diseases among the Free Trade Zone workers has also been observed by medical professionals.

In the garment factories outside the FTZ, work conditions appear to have had a less adverse effect on health than in the FTZ. Only 53% complained of health having deteriorated after joining the factory.

72% of the women workers in the Free Trade Zone are below 25 years of age, and 88% are single.

whose health conditions are best. Medical examinations appear to have been conducted