You see this juxtaposition where the women informal laborers are working with no job security, and only making 30 cents a t-shirt, and their entire livelihood depends on getting jobs from other people that are exploiting them. They're at both the site of all creation, and the site of all profit that gets enjoyed by all the people up the chain - but they themselves do not have job security or protections that recognize their livelihood as a livelihood.

Development researcher Rebecca Reeve examines the exploitation women workers in the global garment industry - as informal workers without legal protection or labor rights, and the site of production and exploitation at the bottom of the global value chain - and calls for NGOs and consumers to recognize that empowerment exists beyond income or participation in capitalism.

Rebecca wrote the article PR, profit and ‘empowering women’ in the garment industry for openDemocracy.