World Cup Merchandise Manufacturers Claim Verbal Abuse, Threats to Jobs, Missing Wages

By Brendan Menapace

Female workers in Bangladesh who have been making merchandise for FIFA, claim that they have been subject to verbal abuse, threats to job loss if they become pregnant, unpaid overtime, and payment below minimum wage.

Human rights researcher Equidemn, which put together the report, has criticized FIFA and its president Gianni Infantino, for seemingly learning nothing from the migrant labor abuse that happened during the Men's World Cup in Qatar this past winter. The Independent reported that FIFA was supposed to set up a subcommittee to "assess the legacy of that event" as it pertains to human rights abuse.

"After the Men's World Cup this past year in Qatar, FIFA pledged to set up a human rights subcommittee that would assess the legacy of the 2022 tournament, though there has been no further update as to the status of that assessment, nor its learnings," Equidem CEO Mustafa Qadri said, according to The Independent. "Equidem urges FIFA to extend its expressed commitment to improving working conditions to women workers in their apparel supply chains."

Female workers who produce Fifa merchandise for events such as the Women’s World Cup have endured pay below minimum wage, verbal abuse, unpaid overtime and threats of job loss if they fall pregnant, according to report by human rights researcher Equidem.https://t.co/wdJADU0gle

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One woman said in the report that workers have daily product manufacturing targets dictated by supervisors.

"I make 60 to 80 pieces per hour," the worker said. "I can only go to the restroom after finishing my hourly target. When a lot of work piles up, they don't let us go anywhere. They verbally abuse us. I work for 10 to 12 hours a day at my sewing machine. Today, my supervisor told me to give 80 pieces per hour, but it was quite difficult to make 80 pieces. I made 60 pieces per hour. He shouted at me several times."

She went on in the report to say that she is unable t find childcare for her son while she works as long as 12-hour days, so he has to live in a different city with her in-laws.

Another sewing machine operator said in the report that their supervisors threatened to fire them if they got pregnant.

"When I started working here, the factory doctor told me not to have babies for the first two years," she said. "I was told that after completing two years, I can have children. I fI get pregnant before that, I have to resign. They will not give me any leave."

Others told Equidem that they were not given paid maternity at all, regardless of how long they worked there, even though Bangladeshi law states that they are entitled to four months of pay.

Qadri went on to compare the work that the players have done off the field to bring attention to pay disparity between them and their male counterparts, and how women manufacturing the merchandise are speaking up to fix their workplaces.

"The FIFA Women's World Cup 2023 brings with it many positive improvements for its players, and it is crucial that FIFA extends that progress to addressing the harms its women workers experience," Qadri said. "FIFA has the power, money, and resource to address this at the systemic level, and we will keep monitoring their global supply chains until it does."

The Equidem report specified that this is for FIFA merchandise, but has not yet confirmed that the products being produced are specifically for the Women's World Cup.

Consumers are more aware than ever of the route their products take from manufacturing to delivery. In the apparel sector, cotton sourced from China has been a big issue, as customers are aware of human rights abuses against Uighur workers in the country's Xinjiang region cotton hub.

Before the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, too, a coalition of 400 human rights groups pressed the IOC about merchandise possibly being produced with forced labor in China.