Archives - Program 2020

About Made in Bangladesh - Unions: a costly political right for women

In Made in Bangladesh, filmmaker Rubaiyat Hossain depicts the struggle of textile workers in Dhaka who start organizing themselves to defend their rights and exercise their citizenship. Forming a trade union, striking and campaigning is a political right, including for women. But how is it guaranteed? What is the cost of union activism? How can we appropriate modes of action often perceived as masculine? After the women's strike* in June 2019, which brought together half a million people, and the cases of sexual harassment denounced in trade unions, the problem is more topical than ever in Switzerland and elsewhere.

Women Economics Labour

Saturday 7 March

20:00

Espace Pitoëff - Théâtre

Co-presented with the Service Agenda 21 – Ville durable de la Ville de Genève in the framework of the equality week, Public Eye and Le Temps

Speakers

Veronica Fernández Méndez Head of Equal Opportunities Department, UNI global union

Elisabeth Schenk Clean Clothes Campaign Switzerland (CCC), Public Eye

Moderated by

Célia Héron Chief of the section "Société" at the newspaper Le Temps

This debat is preceded by the movie:

Competition - Fiction

Made in Bangladesh

By Rubaiyat Hossain

Shimu, 23, works in a garment factory on the outskirts of Dhaka. Faced with increasingly harsh working conditions, she decides to form a trade union. Regardless of the management's threats and disagreement of the husbands: together, the female workers decide to go through with it. The young director Rubaiyat Hossain accurately depicts both the difficult conditions in which our clothes are made and the boundless courage of these women. Based on a true story, the film is carried by admirable performances.