Faces of Cambodia: Part I

Factory

That word never gives me a good feeling. In fact I had a meeting once with the director of an NGO that works with trafficked and vulnerable women who said they were in the process of setting up garment factory for their girls to work. I regret I may have offended this lady when I immediately proceeded to ask, "...and what kind of working standards will be followed in this factory?" This question was employed so she may hopefully put to rest my most immediate imaginations; hot, muggy, dirty, squalor, with sad looking, underpaid, almost-akin-to slave labourers, working gawd knows what awful hours. Yet, in my defence, her reaction to my question might not have been so defensive had similar preconceptions of factory-life not also existed in her head. Aha! Don't be so quick to offence!

The word factory is oppressed and tired, just like it's proverbial workers. It is a word that should be buried in the history of industrial revolution from which it sprung. But it is no use changing the word "factory" to something more enlightened if the experience itself is not. If we redefine the word we must redefine the experience. As a lady I spoke with this morning envisioned for the potential factory her NGO may acquire, "it would be a place women here would love to work, that they would come running to work at!" Her name was Ginny, and this was her vision of a "factory" here in Cambodia. And It's not impossible Mr. Walmart. Why is this so? Because Ginny and her Cambodian partners' business does not run for profits (even though they are very profitable). Their focus is restoring hope and freedom to the lives of women who have faced experiences in trafficking. Making their lives freer and happier. People are the purpose, not profits. And no I am not talking communism, or maybe I am, not sure. But I am talking co-operation, and empowerment of the proletariat and the oppressed.

Just try telling the fat cat capitalists that.

Well, maybe you could tell them, by buying your 40 dollar purse from Sak Saum (the organisation of Ginny's affiliation) rather than Walmart. It'll last as long, it'll look as good (if not much better) and the women who make it get paid well, (well enough for each to buy a piece of their own land, and no small piece!) They are improving their lives experience. Perhaps one day, when they grow their business enough to acquire a "factory" it may be the type of place women would jump at the chance to work at.

And, speaking on the side of optimism, maybe fat cat capitalists are a dying breed, the corporations they have created continue on, those things are outta control man! But the next generation of business-iers I gotta believe they learn a little social responsibility in school and come out the other side as decent human beings. Yes I've seen it. Freed by

Design is an example of this (freedbydesign.org). A shameless plug as I am it's intern, but I believe in it none the less!