Where am I Wearing?: A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People That Make Our Clothes

Timmerman interviews Tim Rem and his wife, Suay, who are elderly and frail. They live in a wooden house on stilts in the Cambodian countryside, surrounded by land mines. Tim tells Timmerman that someone was injured stepping on a mine the previous day, and the day before that, a cow exploded. Timmerman speaks to the couple via his friend Kim, who works for the Mines Advisory Group, helping to clear the country of unexploded mines.

During its history, Cambodia has suffered more bombings than most countries. During the Vietnam War, between 1965 and 1973, the United States relentlessly bombed the country, hoping to destroy the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. Thousands of Cambodians were killed. When the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia, millions of landmines were buried to protect their territory. The mines continue to kill or injure approximately two people each day. Tim confides that he was a Khmer Rouge soldier and planted many of the landmines. He and his brother cleared many when they built his house, but he could not remember the locations of all of them.

Timmerman and Kim pass a house significantly more luxurious than those surrounding it. Kim reveals that the owner is a former Khmer Rouge leader. The United States tried but largely failed to prosecute leaders of the Khmer Rouge. As a child, Kim saw Khmer Rouge soldiers shoot an entire family. At the age of eight, his family sent him to Thailand as a war refugee.

When the Khmer Rouge established power in 1975, they declared “Year Zero,” conveying the idea that Cambodia’s history was starting again. The regime prioritized rice production, so urban populations were moved to rural farms. Twenty percent of the population was killed. The Khmer Rouge’s loss of power marked another rebirth for the country. Cambodia became open to international tourism and employment opportunities, including manufacturing jeans.

Timmerman attends the opening of Steve’s Barbecue, an all-you-can-eat buffet for Westerners. Steve runs an English school, and most attendees are his teachers. While loading their plates, they complain that the buffet is not worth the $5 fee and comment on the incompetence of local people. The porch roof collapses, but no one is hurt.

Although Levi’s jeans are made in Cambodia, they are not sold there. Most are exported to the United States, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. Many NGOs have established themselves in Cambodia, bringing foreign aid. The majority of jobs are in garment manufacturing or tourism.

Timmerman goes to a club with a group of Westerners who call themselves the “Hash House Harriers.” The venue is popular with Chinese and Taiwanese businessmen; by the entrance, local girls are available to hire as dance partners. While Timmerman is standing at the club’s urinal, a bathroom attendant wearing a bow tie starts to massage his shoulders.

Timmerman dances with one of the girls, who reveals that she studied anthropology at college and is a SCUBA diver. At the end of the evening, one of the Harriers propositions a dancer. His friend tells Timmerman that Cambodian women will only have premarital sex if they are sex workers. He describes it as a “transaction” like everything else in the country.

Timmerman visits eight young women who work at a Levi’s factory and share a 96-square-foot room. He reflects that their home is a hundred times smaller than the house he shares with Annie. The room has one basin for laundry, washing dishes, and bathing. Four women sleep on the bed, and four sleep on the floor. The only other piece of furniture is a clothing rack. Although there are Disney posters on the wall, the women do not know who the characters are. They explain that they bought the posters cheaply from the market.

Timmerman speaks to four workers, Nari, Ai, Phoan, and Chendu. Most of them iron jeans in the factory—an unpopular job due to the oppressive heat. Ai is a quality checker. Their wages range from $45 to $70 a week. The young women reveal that they are mostly from rural villages and send money to families whom they miss. They insist that they do not want Americans to boycott Levi’s since they need their jobs. Timmerman introduces the women to bowling, but they are unimpressed with the game and say that they want to go dancing.

Timmerman visits the Levi’s headquarters in Phnom Penh. He meets Pradip, the Indian manager, and tells him the truth about his mission. Pradip agrees to arrange a visit to one of Levi’s 13 factories in Cambodia. He checks the code on Timmerman’s jeans and reveals that they no longer use the factory where they were made. He arranges a visit to a different factory.

In 2000, a documentary exposed Cambodian child labor in factories making garments for Nike and Gap. Jobs were lost as the brands stopped using Cambodian factories. However, in the long run, conditions for workers improved due to unions and the intervention of international organizations.

Timmerman speaks to Tuomo, the director of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Cambodia. Tuomo explains that the ILO’s main aims are prohibiting child labor, forced labor, and discrimination. They inspect factories to make sure that they are complying with regulations. Cambodian factory owners have been worried about the competition with China since the lifting of the Multi-Fiber Agreement. However, by working with the ILO, Cambodian factories won back contracts with Nike and Gap in 2002. This collaboration gives brands a guarantee that the manufacturing process is “sweatshop-free.” Tuomo states that the only cases of child labor they have found involve workers using false identification. He says that garment makers start work at the age of 20 and by 27 are perceived by employers as old. Many workers support large families in rural areas, and there is no social care system to help the elderly or people with disabilities.

Tuomo reveals that union members frequently strike in Cambodia, and some ask for unsustainable pay raises. The average pay for a garment worker is $60 per month. The president of one of the workers’ unions was recently murdered, and it is unclear whether rival unions, factory owners, or the government were responsible. Corruption is rife in the Cambodian government; police and officials use extortion techniques against businesses.

Timmerman visits the Roo Hsing Garment Factory, where Levi’s jeans are made. The manager gives him a tour of the factory and reveals that 85 workers are involved in the process of making a pair of jeans. Timmerman watches a woman grinding stones to distress the jeans while another makes holes in the knees. Another worker is blasting them with a sand gun (a process that Levi’s stopped in 2010 when a study discovered a link between the disease silicosis and sandblasting). Suddenly, club music plays through the factory speakers, and a voice gives calisthenics instructions. The workers do their exercises and then return to work.

When the last American Levi’s factory closed in 2004, the brand outsourced manufacturing to places like the Roo Hsing Garment Factory. Over the years, Levi’s has maintained a reputation as a good employer. Workers were kept on the payroll after the 1906 earthquake destroyed their San Francisco factory. The company also endeavored to keep workers on during the Great Depression. However, Levi’s ultimately could not compete with the force of globalization. Consequently, tens of thousands of jobs were lost in the United States.

Historically, Levi’s also has had a good ethical reputation. The company refused to use prisoners to make their products in the 19th century when other businesses were doing so. In the 1960s, Levi’s factories in the American South were non-segregated before the Civil Rights Act was passed. Levi’s also refused to do business in South Africa during apartheid. In 1991, the company established guidelines for international sourcing to ensure that workers’ rights were respected. For that reason, Levi’s pulled out of China, setting a precedent for other ethical companies. However, five years later, the future of Levi’s was threatened by market pressures. Consequently, they lowered their ethical standards and returned to China in 1998. Levi’s are now made in over 40 countries.

Timmerman concludes that the working conditions at the Roo Hsing Garment Factory are of the standard he would expect in the United States. The workers are taught their rights by organizations like Oxfam and the United Nations Development Fund for Women. While Timmerman feels assured that Levi’s workers in Cambodian factories are fairly treated, he cannot vouch for the other 40 countries to which they outsource.

Nari and Ai agree to take Timmerman to visit their home villages, which are a five-hour minibus ride away. Since the young women work six days a week and the bus ride costs 10% of their monthly earnings, their visits home are infrequent. Timmerman hires a taxi.

Nari reveals that she paid a labor shark $50 to get her the job at the garment factory. She dreams of opening a beauty salon in her village. Nari’s parents live in a sparsely furnished wooden house on stilts. As a young woman, Nari’s mother witnessed the genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge and worked in the village rubber plantation. Now, there are no local jobs; the villagers’ daughters go to cities to work as garment makers while their sons work the land. Nari helps to support a family of seven since her father’s rice fields do not provide enough income.

Ai’s family home is in a more deprived area. Two of her brothers are dead—one died from malaria, and the other died by suicide. Ai supports a family of six with her monthly wage of $55. She reveals that she has no employment contract, so she lacks job security or rights. Ai says that she misses working in the rice fields with her family. Workers are not allowed to talk at the factory, and the bosses are harsh.

Timmerman visits the Phnom Penh city dump, where Cambodians scavenge among the trash for anything recyclable. Two thousand of the scavengers are former farmers who chose to relocate because they could not support their families. They live in shacks on the dump’s edge and earn less than $1 a day. Timmerman invites some children who are picking through the garbage to play Frisbee. One of the boys has a dirty gash on his foot.

After Hollywood producer Scott Neeson visited the dump, he sold his house and car and moved to Cambodia. Neeson set up the Cambodian Children’s Fund, providing 700 children from the dump with food, shelter, and an education. Timmerman reflects that the children at the dump would be lucky to become garment workers like Nari and Ai.

After Timmerman’s visit in 2007, Cambodia’s economic growth was impacted by the global financial crisis. Consequently, in 2009, 70 factories closed, and 70,000 workers lost their jobs. Many returned to their villages or resorted to sex work. When his efforts to contact Nari and Ai were unsuccessful, Timmerman found a student named Sima willing to go and see them. Sima discovered that Nari had left the factory before it closed in 2009 and opened a beauty shop in her village, but it was unsuccessful. After marrying a teacher, she had a son and cut hair from a shack. Ai got another job as a checker, returned to her village to help with farming, and finally got a job as a hotel cleaner working seven days a week. Although the $70 per month she earned was an improvement, she was often ill and could not afford medical care. Ai expressed surprise that Timmerman remembered her.