Controversy Breaks Out over Hansae’s Exploitation of Laborers in Myanmar, Vietnam

Last month, international labor rights advocacy groups announced in their reports that a number of human rights abuses were being carried out at factories operated by Hansae Co. in Vietnam.

According to foreign news wires, the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) and the Fair Labor Association (FLA) which are international labor and human rights consortiums announced that numerous cases of violations of labor standards were found through on-the-spot inspections of Hansae‘s Vietnamese factories.

The report exposed chronic problems such as labor exploitation, job-seeking bribery, discrimination against pregnant workers, over 90-degree-Celsius temperature inside factories, the use of hazardous chemicals and locked doors and many workers who fainted from fatigue and heat.

The report was drawn up as last year some US media’s reports about the actual conditions of the Hansae factories in Ho Chi Minh City of Vietnam prompted Washington University and Cornell University to sue the factories.

These universities are demanding that subcontractors including Hansae producing Nike produce clothing with school logos on in a safe working environment.

Moreover, a boycott of Nike is reportedly expanding products in the United States. For example, Georgetown University students are urging university authorities to boycott Nike products for oppressing workers at the Vietnamese factories.

Meanwhile, in March 2015, controversy arose as Kostek International, an affiliate of Hansae in Myanmar, fired its 158 striking workers who demanded a wage raise and forced them to sign an oath not to go on a strike as a condition for allowing them to return to work among others.

Hansae is an exporter of garments which receives orders from famous buyers in the US, such as Nike, Gap, H&M, Wal-Mart and Target.