In August 2023 many well-known brand names such as Swedish H&M, Spanish Zara and Irish Primark withdrew their operations in Myanmar, with the goal of not legitimizing Myanmar’s military junta, who seized power in February 2021. Now, eight months later, the Industrial Workers Federation of Myanmar (IWFM) gathered information, which point to the fact, that the companies are still operating in Myanmar, and worker complaints have continued to increase.
Myanmar Labour news has registered 455 violations in 2023, which is nearly three times as many as th 165 registration in the year before. Zara and other companies under the Inditex distribution group were mentioned 33 times and H&M was mentioned 13 times.
Back then, the move to leave the country was greatly supported by Khaing Zar Aung, human rights activist and President IWFM. She claimed, that the companies could no-longer pretend to protect workers rights, as the armed war became more violent and the democratic values crumbled. Many suppliers were accused of labor abuses, forced overtime, wage theft, unfair dismissal, gender-based violence and attacks on freedom of association.
Now, Khaing Zar Aung, criticizes the companies’ prolonged withdrawal from Myanmar. According to her, the companies lose their power in leveraging fair working conditions, as the suppliers no-longer have to adhere to the company’s standards, when they know, that the companies will soon be gone.
When confronted, an H&M spokesperson said to Sourcing Journal, that the Swedish company is trying to exit Myanmar in a responsible way, and that they are still very aware of all cases brought to their attention, while simoultanuosly reducing the number of active manufacturers.
Other companies do not even have the intention to leave Myanmar, like the Danish retailer Bestseller. The company still has agreements with 21 factories in Myanmar and have said, that the payments of wages are monitored closely. The reason for not leaving the country is their belief, that it would push the garment workers in to worse living conditions in an already unstable economy. Therefore, the companies, who are staying argue, that it saves the workers from an even more tremendous human rights catastrophe.
Source: Sourcing Journal
