Negombo, Sri Lanka, July 2016
“Beyond the factories” is a project that I realized in Sri Lanka on July 2016. It is about the condition of female workers in the factories around Negombo, where there are many types of manufacturing companies, especially garments.
The clothing industry in Sri Lanka is a huge economic driver. It directly employs an estimated 300,000 people, with an additional 600,000 indirectly employed. The garment industry has made Sri Lankan women financially independent, but they are not yet autonomous.
I tried to show the labour conditions in Sri Lanka with an intimate view, showing the houses where these women live.
Most of them live in a poor area like a ghetto, where they are in just one room without private toilets. Sometimes these workers come from villages far away, and they leave their children with the grandparents, because they can’t look after the kids.
Most of them dreams to build a house, most of them decide to sacrifice their lives to give a better opportunity of their sons.