The Very Group wins UN award for work to empower women in Indian textile industry
The Very Group has won the community engagements and partnerships category at the India United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles Awards for its work in empowering young women in the country’s textile industry.
Presented in a virtual ceremony, the award recognises the group’s work in founding five resource centres in southern India, which has helped to increase 25,000 female textile industry workers’ and their families’ knowledge of labour rights.
The news means the group now qualifies for the Asia-Pacific WEPs Awards, which will be held in Bangkok on 18 November.
Very’s work in India, which it undertook alongside retailers Next and Varner as well as NGO SAVE, included engagement with female workers and their families, textile mill owners and recruitment agents.
Carly Bilsbrough, Very’s head of sustainability and leader of the project, said: “Tackling complex issues to improve the lives of people in our supply chain is hugely important to us. And with concerns in recent years regarding labour rights violations around the practice of hiring women into textile mills in southern India, we made it our priority to support them.
“We’re hugely proud of the project, and thankful for the enthusiasm and commitment of the communities, agents and mills we’ve worked with. We hope that this award will bring even greater focus on the development of women’s labour rights in Indian textile mills, as well as the textile industry globally.”
