India's employee hostels are often like prisons – but young women garment workers don't always see it that way

By Andrew Crane, Professor of Business and Society, University of Bath

Kavitha, 18, earns a living at a clothing factory in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Like many of her colleagues, she lives in accommodation provided by the factory, where she shares a dimly lit hostel room with 16 other women.

The rooms in these hostels have little in the way of home comforts – there are no fans or air conditioning – and the women sleep on simple mats on the floor. Life revolves around work at the factory, where Kavitha stitches up to 80 T-shirts an hour, eight hours a day, six days a week, for around £60 per month.

Back at the hostel, Kavitha’s…

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