Corona Daily 313: Mom’s House or Dad’s House?

Last month, a superior court of justice in Ontario, Canada had to rule on whether a father can exercise his rights and spend time with his daughter during the summer holiday.

Almaz Yohannes, the mother, lives in Toronto. Her ex-husband Florent Boni lives in France. They divorced in 2012. Their 10-year old daughter Selyana lives with her mother in Toronto. Selyana spends her school breaks, including six-weeks of summer holiday with her father in France. On hearing the mother was reluctant to send Selyana to France in these pandemic times, the father went to the French police complaining about the non-compliance of the order by his ex-wife. The mother then brought an urgent motion requesting the Ontario court to suspend the father’s rights during the pandemic.

The court decided that it was in Selyana’s best interest not to travel to France until the Covid-19 pandemic continued and the Travel Advisory was in place. Considering the extraordinary circumstances, it was practical to change the original parenting order. The father can exercise his access to Selyana in Toronto when he visits in the future.

The judge, who decided the case through a videoconference, also expected the parties to co-operate.

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Counselors and courts expect parents to co-operate, but in many cases the parents divorced because they couldn’t. 

Even when divorced or separated parents live in the same city, co-parenting has become complicated. In the USA alone, there are 8.3 million children co-raised by estranged biological parents. The historical norm of sole-mother custody is now replaced by equal or equitable custody. A child moves between two houses, staying for three days in one, four days in another every week. Some children spend alternate weekends with their father and mother. They don’t ever say “I’m going home”. It’s either “mom’s house” or “dad’s house”.

Since March, the children and their parents have faced several problems. Normally, the house swap happened at the school or a parent’s workplace. Now kids must be collected and dropped at the ex’s house. With restricted movement in lockdown, it was not clear if the agreed terms can be abided by. Michael Gove, the UK minister, had to clarify the lockdown restrictions didn’t apply to movement of minor children living in two houses.

A real frustration in co-parenting is that you don’t know what goes on in the other house. Is your ex’s new family as careful about handwashing and social distancing? What if the ex-husband’s now-wife is a nurse?

Family courts were initially closed, later virtual. For them, the joint custody disputes are not a priority over domestic violence cases. Courts worldwide take interference with custody and visitation seriously. A nasty parent can even file charges of kidnapping against the ex for not following the parenting order. Where relations are not cordial, co-parents are worried about unilaterally changing the agreed arrangements.

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Chloe Caldwell, 34, writes for New York Times. She stays with her stepdaughter, Louise, 10. For half a week, Louise moves to her mother’s house, where the mother lives with her current husband and children.

Since March, Louise started sleeping badly; many children do in the pandemic. She asked for a puppy as a companion. Chloe and her husband were not keen, but Louise’s mother was. In June, on Louise’s tenth birthday, her mother gave her a fluffy pandemic puppy, Bella. Caldwell’s poignant story about co-parenting a puppy ends happily with both Louise and Bella now moving every week between the two houses.

Ravi

Corona Daily 314: The Nightingale Court

The Lowry, named after an English artist, is an impressive theatre and gallery complex in Salford, Greater Manchester. Its two drama theatres with a total capacity of more than 2000 seats have been completely shut since March.

Today, for the first time, the Lowry theatre will reopen. From its wings, a judge will appear all dressed up exactly as the English judges should be. He will occupy a throne below a huge coat of arms suspended in the air. The judge will be given his own dressing room on a lower floor. Jurors will sit not on the stage, but in the auditorium. The best seats in the auditorium are reserved for them; each juror is allocated an entire box designed for six people.

The sound booth at the back is removed – the defendant will sit there. He will be clearly visible to the judge and the jury; there will not be a bullet-proof dock.

Airport-like scanners are placed at the theatre entrance. The judge, jurors, the defendant and anyone else wanting to attend will walk through these scanners.

The theatre lighting will be very sober and unchanging. No spotlights will be used for either the prosecutor or the defending counsel.

Julia Fawcell, the Theatre’s CEO explained it by saying: “Coming to court is a serious business. It is very important that there is dignity and accountability.”

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Like theatres, England’s courts too had shut down in March as well. By 23 August, England’s crown court gathered a backlog of 46,467 cases, and the magistrates’ court had 517,782 pending cases. The backlog situation was severe before the pandemic, now it threatened to become catastrophic. Criminal courts wanted to use digital hearings. This was condemned as violating the fundamental principle of open justice which requires hearings in the presence of public. The justice secretary proposed reducing the number of juries to 7 (instead of the twelve angry men) or abandoning jury trials. These ideas were rejected. Defendants can be held in custody for six months. With trials stopped, that period was over for many. Judges were reluctant to extend their stay, particularly with the virus roaming about in the prisons.

With the passage of time, reliability of witnesses’ memory becomes an issue. Also the stress for victims, witnesses, and the defendants assumes a chronic form.

Finally, the justice secretary announced the concept of the Nightingale Courts. Temporary courts to handle the backlog of cases. In July 2020, ten such courts began working. More staff was recruited, and technology rolled out. The Nightingale courts handle all non-custodial crime, civil, family and tribunal cases.

Today, courts will start conducting trials in the Lowry theatre, Hilton hotel York and Jury’s Inn in Middleborough. (The hotel name Jury’s Inn is a mere coincidence). The Lowry has offered three courtrooms, all holding daytime trials from Monday to Friday. The ministry of justice will pay an undisclosed amount to the Lowry and other venues. It is a crucial lifeline for the theatre which has lost £20 million in revenue this year.

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‘Slow justice is no justice’ or ‘justice delayed is justice denied’ are well-known clichés. Yet, in countries like the UK or India, the judiciary has been excessively conservative. Documents must be printed, notarized, and hand-delivered. The number of courts and trial rooms are horribly behind the population growth.  Countries still using a jury have a lengthy process to select them.

Fortunately, the pandemic is now forcing the judiciary to shed its outmoded ways. Virtual trials have started. And the UK has set an example with the Nightingale Courts that other countries must take note of.

Ravi  

Corona Daily 315: Sophie’s World and the Coronavirus

One of the several mysteries of the current pandemic is the way it has spared children so dramatically. The number of infections among children, as compared to adults, is tiny. This phenomenon is uniform across all countries. A major study headed by Dr Betsy Herold published its results this week. When reading it, I was reminded of the novel Sophie’s World.

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Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder, a Norwegian writer, is a philosophy textbook disguised as a novel. Highly readable, this bestselling book introduces the reader, along with Sophie, to the history of philosophy.

In one place, the book talks about a toddler, who sees and hears a dog bark for the first time. The one-year old is excited, perhaps alarmed, because it has never seen a barking dog before. If the toddler were to see an apple shooting up from the ground to the tree, or its mother walking on the ceiling, it would not be shocked; it would simply store these new experiences. In that sense, pre-school children have a very open mind, because they haven’t yet learnt gravity in school. Children have no preconceived opinions. A child’s mind is a Tabula Rasa (clean slate).  

Adults however, become slaves of the expectations of habit based on their experiences and education. A barking dog is not an event to pay attention to, and if a magician makes an apple fly, they know it is only a trick of some kind.

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Dr Herold’s team studied 60 adults and 65 children (age under 24) in a New York hospital from March to May.

The study finds that the children’s “innate immune defence” is rapid and overwhelming. Compared to adults, children have experienced few viruses. As soon as a child’s immune system confronts the coronavirus, it becomes alert and starts fighting with all force.

Human beings have two types of immunity – innate and adaptive. Adults, over time, have experienced a series of viruses; their systems carry a large database of the pathogenic villains. Their response, called the “adaptive response”, is more virus-specific. The adaptive immunity tries to create antibodies and immune cells to target the particular virus.

Apoorva Mandavilli, in her New York Times article compares the children’s immune response to an ambulance that immediately starts working on the patient. The adults’ adaptive response is like that of the skilled specialists at the hospital.

By the time the adult gets the adaptive system up and running, the virus gains valuable time to inflict harm. In older adults, the innate system fades making them more vulnerable.

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This is not a speculative hypothesis. The children studied had much higher blood levels of two particular immune molecules – interleukin 17A and interferon gamma. The largest quantities were found in the youngest patients. Quantities declined progressively with age.

All viruses have their inbuilt tricks to evade the innate immune system, and the novel coronavirus is known to be particularly skillful. By producing interleukin-17 early in the course of infection, children seem to successfully defeat the virus’s attempts to avoid the innate response.

Dr Herold noted that most existing vaccine candidates focus on boosting the neutralizing-antibody levels. She suggests developers should consider vaccines that can promote immunity by bolstering the innate immune response.

*****

Adults, alas, can’t be children any more. But they can try to mimic how children defend themselves against the novel coronavirus.

Ravi

Corona Daily 316: Numbers 53, 106, 151

Vaccine trials can determine only the starting date, never the end date. Because the end date is contingent on events beyond anybody’s control.

Trump is pushing for a pre-election deadline. It is like asking an obstetrician to successfully deliver a four-month pregnant woman’s baby. Feeling threatened, two companies, Moderna and Pfizer, decided to be excessively transparent with the public. Moderna’s 135 page confidential protocol is now displayed on its website. In it, Moderna gives its pre-programmed milestones – 53, 106, 151. What do these numbers mean?

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Moderna planned two shots each to 30,000 participants, four weeks apart. Participants are monitored to see if they develop symptoms of covid-19 and test positive. To determine the vaccine’s efficacy, Moderna counts cases two weeks after the second shot.

Moderna’s first milestone is 53 Covid cases - fifty-three in total, irrespective of whether the case was a vaccine or a placebo recipient.

Let us imagine an extreme case, where all 53 covid cases are placebo receivers but not a single vaccine recipient has contracted the virus. This is delightful news - the vaccine is effective, the trial can end and an approval be sought.

However, dreams are perfect and life is not.

At the other extreme is a possibility of all 53 cases occurring solely among the vaccinated group, and none among the placebo-takers. If this bizarre scenario were to happen, the trial will be abandoned, the developers sacked, and the company sued.

As is usually the case, the reality will lie somewhere between these two extremes, with positive cases emerging from both groups.

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How can a vaccinated person contract covid-19, you may ask. Well, vaccines - like humans - are imperfect. The most successful vaccine – the Measles vaccine - is 97% effective. But flu vaccines are only 40%-60% effective.

Covid-19 vaccines are rushed, and expected to protect against a truly novel virus. The FDA is willing to approve a Covid-19 vaccine as long as it is 50% more effective than a placebo. 70% is desirable but challenging.

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If a vaccine is going to be effective only 50%-70%, why take it? If despite vaccination, a person can still catch the virus, what is the point? The point is this: the target of the Covid-19 vaccination programme is to achieve herd immunity, more than protecting each individual. (Sorry for the disappointing news). A 70% effective vaccine will reduce transmissibility, allow people to move around freely, and bring us back to a life more or less normal. The case numbers will be small and declining. There will still be Covid-19 cases and deaths, but not outbreaks.

That is why it is essential as many people as possible get vaccinated to get to the 70% magic herd immunity number. And people will agree to the shot in the arm, only if they have confidence in the vaccine. And they will have confidence only if there is complete transparency, and the job is not rushed.

*****

When Moderna reaches the first 53 cases, and if the difference between vaccinated and placebo-ed is not significant, it will wait till 106 cases, the next milestone. The placebo cases should be at least double those of the vaccine cases. If this doesn’t happen at 106, the next number is 151 (0.5% of the trial participants). Moderna will not consider asymptomatic, mild cases. So how long it – and we - will have to wait is unknown.

Ravi

Corona Daily 317: The Importance of a Placebo

When we fall ill, what cures us? Medicines? Possibly.  But that is only one of three elements. The other two are: nature and our own mind.

I remember a saying. With medicines, a cold disappears in seven days. Without, it takes a week. Nature is the greatest healer and medical science tries to complement it. For minor issues like cold, cough, fever, stomach upset, headache a person can simply rest, and let nature take her own course. But doctors prescribe medicines because of their training and patients lacking patience take them. Smart bacteria have made many antibiotics ineffective. Clever doctors prescribe a course long enough for a timely cure by nature.

B follows A, therefore A must have caused B. This is called the post hoc fallacy. A village child hears the rooster crowing, and then sees the sun rising. The child is certain; the sun rises because of the rooster.

Did the medicine have any effect on your headache? To answer you must ask: what would have happened to the headache had you not taken the medicine? This is the purpose of a placebo. Take two friends with a bad headache. (Maybe they drank together last night). Give a real pill to one, and an identical looking dummy pill (placebo) to the other. If by evening, both heads feel fine, then obviously the medicine was unnecessary.

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Other than nature and medicines, our mind is the third doctor. If a person with a headache believes the pill would help him, even the dummy pill may help. This is called the placebo effect. Placebo medication has been shown to reduce pain because the patient’s belief activates the endogenous opioid system in the brain.

God is an excellent example of a placebo. A student sincerely praying before an exam, or a sportsman asking God’s blessings may truly excel in their performance. God is a placebo medicine, because nobody has seen the real medicine.

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Coming to the Covid-19 vaccines, you may have heard that the trials are randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled. This is the gold standard without which a vaccine will not be approved.

Half of the volunteers are given a real vaccine (experimental group). The other half is given a placebo vaccine (control group). The thousands of trial participants have no idea if they were given a vaccine or a dummy jab. That is a single blind. But the doctors/ nurses who administered them don’t know it either. That is why it is a double-blind trial. (The database has the record of who is who).

To further remove any bias, the allocation of vaccines and placebos is done randomly. Without blinding and randomization, a doctor may be tempted to give placebos to healthy volunteers, and real vaccines to less healthy ones. That could distort the results.

It is important a volunteer doesn’t know what he is given. Oxford gives a meningitis/ septicemia vaccine as a placebo. That way there is muscle pain, soreness, redness and swelling where the needle went in. Of course, it will do nothing against the coronavirus.

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Giving a placebo is always an ethical issue. Informed consent is obtained from all the participants. Everyone has a right to withdraw from the trial at any stage. If someone who has received a placebo vaccine falls ill with Covid-19, he will be treated on a priority basis.

In fact, for the success of the trial, it is critical that a number of volunteers should fall ill with Covid-19. Tomorrow I will explain why.

Ravi

Corona Daily 318: Place Euphoria in Frozen Storage

I meet lots of people who are euphoric about Covid-19 vaccines. With the amount of investment and dozens of candidates running trials, the world will get a vaccine anytime soon, signalling curtains on the pandemic. Pfizer has one of the three vaccines that have advanced to phase 3 trials. God forbid Pfizer wins the race by getting approval for its vaccine. Why so?

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Vaccines travel a long way from the factory to the injectible arm – often across continents. Most standard proven vaccines need to be maintained at temperatures between 2C (36F) and 8C (46F) throughout the cold chain. If the vaccine becomes too warm for too long, it can become ineffective. (These two documents state in lovely details: all that you ever or never wanted to know about cold chains.)

Now along comes Pfizer and develops a Covid-19 vaccine that must be maintained at -80 C (-112 F) throughout the cold chain. Great if all of us were living on the South Pole. Fedex had invested in freezers for the 2009 H1N1 epidemic, they have doubled their capacity. UPS is building a freezer farm with ultra-cold freezers to store millions of doses.

Additionally, staff has to be trained and equipped. You can’t operate the freezer unless you are wearing personal protective equipment (not to be confused with the Covid PPE), specific gloves and special goggles. Of course, you can’t invite the whole world to a farm in Louisville to get vaccinated. The special operators must take the vaccines out to the trucks.

That has to be done with dry ice. But dry ice on flights needs special approvals. Because when it melts, it emits carbon dioxide, potentially making the plane unsafe for pilots and crew.

The trucks, planes, warehouses, clinics, chemists will require dry ice. Dry ice is made of CO2, which is a byproduct while producing ethanol. The demand for ethanol moves in line with gasoline. But people are driving less, so the ethanol production has slumped. As a result, dry ice is in huge shortage.

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Meanwhile, the American glass company Corning has warned that glass cracks in such extreme cold. Meaning the glass vials will be defunct. Corning is now developing a new type of glass that can withstand these temperatures.

In theory, the Pfizer vaccine can be shipped in “dry ice pack” boxes. But that dry ice will need to be replenished within 24 hours of receipt. The shipping carton must be closed within one minute of opening, and should not be opened more than twice a day. Again, dry ice handlers need to be trained at all stages, because of the risk of asphyxiation.

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Your chemist or GP is unlikely to invest in the necessary equipment. Even in developed countries, the probable scenario is people going to a centralized location, such as a hospital with great super freezers, and queuing up for a vaccine. With such stringent cold chain conditions, only 2.5 billion people in 25 countries would be able to access the vaccine. About 5.5 billion people in 180 countries in Asia and Africa will be deprived for lack of infrastructure.

Globally, half of the vaccines are wasted because of the supply chain logistics. India, a developed vaccine country, wastes 25% as a minimum, and up to 50% of BCG vaccines. Reliable electricity supply is key. In Uganda, 70% of the health care facilities have electricity going off for a few hours every day.

Moderna vaccine is slightly warmer, requires -20 C (-4 F). Oxford and Johnson and Johnson vaccines expect normal 2C-8C conditions.

People living in areas with unreliable power supply should not be euphoric about the potential vaccine.

Ravi

Corona Daily 319: No Covid Vaccine For Our Children?

An academic paper published last week by Dr Evan Anderson and others raises an important issue. Currently at least 38 vaccines are in clinical trials. Another dozen will soon enter the trial phase. All of them will be tried on adults. Not a single vaccine has plans to run trials on children.

In the past, many vaccines were designed for children: measles, polio and tetanus. In April 1954, the polio vaccine was tried on 1.8 million children in the USA. By 1964, polio was eradicated from that country. Childhood measles vaccines prevented 12.7 million deaths worldwide between 2000 and 2008.

Vaccines for adults do not get an automatic approval for children. Children are not small adults. Their smaller airways make them more vulnerable to low levels of inflammation. The vaccine dose for adults and children also varies. Based on the weight of the patient, medicines can have varying impact. As a rule, children will be given a smaller dose of medicine than an adult. Vaccines work differently. The job of a vaccine is to educate the immune cells so they can recognize a virus or bacteria later. Children get a smaller dose of hepatitis A and hepatitis B, but a bigger dose of diphtheria and pertussis than adults. From the latter two vaccines, adults are more likely to experience side effects.

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Trials on children take a long time. Children are not a homogenous group. A vaccine that is safe and effective on adults will be first tried on teenagers. In steps, it will move after many months to the age group 3-8. Finally, it will be tried on the youngest, below 3 years of age. The process has different protocols, different approvals, and the parents have to give an informed consent.

True, Covid-19 is not known to be dangerous for children. As per the CDC data, out of the 190,000 deaths in the USA, only 121 were under the age of 21. Children are considered a low risk group, and are low on the priority list of the vaccine developers.

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India is demographically a young country. 41% of its population, 574 million are under 18 years of age. Vaccines are likely to be available for Indian adults by end 2021 in the best case scenario. If the trials on children were to start after that, we may be waiting for a pediatric vaccine till 2023.  

Yes, the 574 million Indian children are not a high risk group. Still, all of them are currently locked up in their homes, the majority unable to attend schools and colleges. Will this continue till the pediatric vaccine is available?

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Children may not succumb to covid-19, but they can transmit the virus. In the absence of a pediatric vaccine, they can continue to spread the disease to non-vaccinated adults. USA is already debating whether the government can or should mandate a vaccine for school attending children.

In my research, I could find three vaccines with some plans for children. The Oxford plans include a trial on an age group 5-12, to be completed by August 2021. Later this month, China’s Sinovac Biotech will try CoronaVac on 552 Chinese children aged between 3-17. Russia says it may start a trial on children after nine months.

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Dr Anderson’s concern is valid. He wants the developers to start the trials for children now, so they could start safe school life in autumn 2021. Children’s going to school is pivotal to the world coming out of the pandemic.

Ravi

Corona Daily 320: A Masked Ball

Two evenings ago, on Sunday 20 September, Madrid’s opera lovers gathered at the Teatro Real. The Royal Theatre would perform Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera (a masked ball). A clever pandemic choice since in the third act everyone on the stage is wearing costumes and masks. A secretary is trying to find his boss, the governor, who is in love with his wife. On learning his target is in a black cloak and a red ribbon, he stabs his rival.

In July, Teatro Real was one of the world’s first opera houses to return with a production that included a chorus, an orchestra and soloists. On stage, an attempt was made to keep the soloists two meters apart. Orchestra members wore masks where possible and maintained distance. Plastic panels were placed in front of the woodwind section. Artists arrived at staggered times to avoid crowding. Bathroom doors and taps were no-touch. Interval was extended to 40 minutes to reduce queues and crowding.

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Before the start of the Masked Ball, shouting and clapping were heard from the upper balconies. Nicola Luisotti, the conductor, entered, bowed to the audience, and the overture began. The clapping continued. This was not applause, but rhythmic clapping similar to a sports stadium. Luisotti turned and looked at the source of the noise, his eyes pleading for decency. Then the music stopped. In the upper circles, movement was visible; spectators could be seen changing seats.

The opera restarted, and Ramon Vargas finished his first aria, but the slow clapping and loud murmurs went on. The theatre acoustics are so good - spectators’ talk was as audible as the singing from the stage. The singers, musicians and dancers left the stage. The show was abandoned.

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Madrid regulations allow the theatres to use 75% of the capacity. The royal theatre had sold 65% of the tickets. Mathematically, these percentages can’t allow empty seats on both sides.  Rows in the upper balconies were crowded, meaning most seats were taken. Spanish blood is hot, even when it is running in the veins of an opera lover. It particularly hurt because they could see below them viewers in the stalls who were socially distanced. The upper circles decided to protest against this class discrimination. The theatre’s statement later said there was no discrimination. They had sold fewer stall tickets, being expensive.

At the same time, large scale protests were happening outside the theatre. From Monday, 21 September, 850,000 residents in some of Madrid’s poor neighbourhoods are put in a lockdown. They are unhappy about the impending restrictions. Sunday was their last chance to protest. Ironically, they wanted to be free of restrictions, and those inside the theatre were demanding restrictions should be abided by.

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Three months ago, on 22 June, a cute concert happened in another part of Spain. Puccini’s Crisantemi (Chrysanthemums) was performed by a string quartet in the Liceu Opera House in Barcelona. That theatre has 2292 seats, and each seat was occupied – by a plant. In a way, the concert was arranged for the only superpower in the world- Mother Nature.

The two violins, viola and cello of the Uceli quartet performed for the vegetable kingdom. The concert executing the beautiful concept could be attended by human beings online.

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Madrid’s Royal theatre may want to take a leaf out of the Barcelona book. Next time, it can place plants between viewers to stop them protesting.

Ravi

Corona Daily 321: Ripped Jeans

Levi’s has reported 62% drop in sales, lost $364 mn in the first three months, and cut 15% of its corporate staff. Lesser known companies like True Religion, Lucky Brand, G-star RAW, Joe’s Jeans and Hudson’s Jeans have filed for bankruptcies.

The decline of the jeans market had started before the pandemic. In the 2000s, celebrities had popularized “low rise” and “skinny” jeans. Without corresponding bodies, they were uncomfortable. In the last decade, “athleisure”; leggings, joggers and yoga pants were making inroads into the jeans market. With work from home now, comfort is king. Employees don’t like to wear high heels or jeans at home; Zoom shows only their upper half anyway.  

Few people buy jeans without trial, online or offline. The declining trend in jeans was suddenly accelerated.

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The joy of unearthing and regulating the harassment at Lesotho Jeans factories was short-lived. Declining demand for jeans and garments in general affected 40 million workers worldwide. Global brands cancelled in excess of $26 billion of orders. 80% were cancelled with no compensation. In Bangladesh alone, fashion brands cancelled $3.5 billion at more than 1150 factories, causing 84% decline in orders. Factories stopped paying workers. Workers could not feed their families any more.

American and European companies hold all the cards. They draw the contracts; suppliers from poor countries have little bargaining power. Contractually, suppliers take all the risks. They must buy the materials, hire workers, and run factories. They can’t raise an invoice until the order is shipped. If big brands cancel existing orders and refuse shipments, invoices can’t be sent, and nobody in Bangladesh gets paid.

Since March, many garment companies simply cancelled the orders, or asked for up to 30% of discount. Factories had already bought cloth for the future orders based on sales projections. There was no contractual way to claim those costs from the brand owners. Some companies invoked “force Majeure”, a clause which many suppliers never knew the meaning of.

Kohl’s is one of the USA’s largest clothing retailers. On 22 March, in a conference call, it cancelled all orders it had placed with its global suppliers. Some of them were making garments for Kohl’s for over 20 years. Kohl’s closed 1159 stores, fired 85000 staff in the USA. Having efficiently taken these steps, on 1 April, Kohl’s paid out $109 million in dividends to its shareholders. All these actions were perfectly legal.

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The pandemic has exposed the power imbalance and demonstrated the impunity with which the fashion brands operate their business models. Levi’s, one of the less bad companies, pays for goods 90 days after delivery. In other words, they extort credit of three months from poor Bangladeshi and other vendors. Levi’s works with hundreds of factories. It employs 15000 direct employees, and has more than 300,000 indirect workers. Historically, the company has distanced itself from the workers who make their product. Factory closures and 1 million garment workers losing their jobs in Bangladesh have highlighted the imbalance.

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Talking of jeans, it is difficult to predict if they will bounce back. The longer the pandemic, the longer the work-from-home, the more difficult it will be for the demand to pick up. I feel global warming may also threaten jeans in the long term. Skintight jeans are certainly uncomfortable in hot weather. Someone has called them cardiovascular prisons.

The fashion brands will need to think of the supply side as well. Resurrecting broken supply chains, bankrupt factories and destitute workers is a challenge they will face in a year or two.

Ravi

Corona Daily 322: The Violence behind Jeans

M, 23, started working in one of the biggest jeans-making factory in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. After the probation period, her supervisor recommended her for a full-time job.  But just days later, near the end of the shift, her boss called her to his office, closed the blinds, and asked her to shut the door. When she refused, he said he expected gratitude. She ran out as he tried to assault her, went to HR and complained. The same evening she was fired.

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Lesotho, a South African country, exports 90 million jeans a year, compared to 10 billion by Bangladesh. But Lesotho specializes in Denim. It makes more than 26 million denim pairs a year for Levi’s. The garment industry contributes to 25% of Lesotho’s GDP.

The jeans-making factories never hired enough full-timers despite the massive orders from US and Europe. Instead, every morning, a long queue of women waited at the gates. A male supervisor chose a dozen. They were called “dailies”, unemployed cutters and machinists, visiting factory gates looking for daily wages.

During the working day, the women endured sexual harassment, groping, abuse from their male supervisors. Forcing women to have sex was the lunchtime recreation for male bosses. Women with hungry babies agreed to the assault to keep their jobs. Others were raped on the factory premises. Junior managers’ sex was watched by senior managers as “porn” on the factory CCTV. Bosses regularly demanded unprotected sex before releasing the salaries. Some women contracted HIV as a result.

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The factories are owned by Nien Hsing, a giant Taiwanese corporation. It supplies jeans to Levi Strauss, Wrangler, The Children’s Place and other retailers. Major brands choose such intermediaries to keep themselves at arm’s length. Neither the sex predators nor the victims are employees of Levi’s or Wrangler. They are employed by a company in Taiwan, where labour laws and human rights are not as strict as in the USA.

The jobs at jeans factories require low skill and are paid poorly. Dailies are paid $7 a day. With low wages, destitute women pick up those jobs. They tolerate repeated harassment and sexual assaults to feed their malnourished kids.

Levi Strauss & Co. carried social audits and factory inspections as part of their operating procedures. However, their representatives talked to the women in groups, and in front of their supervisors. The inspections happened under conditions where the women could never speak out.

***** 

In 2018, Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) started investigating what was going on in the Lesotho denim factories. They conducted anonymous off-site interviews. All women said the main problem was the supervisors. Each one had a sordid story to tell. The 22-page WRC report giving the shocking findings demanded that binding, enforceable agreements be signed to root out GBVH (Gender Based violence and harassment).

Management of Nien Hsing initially denied the allegations, but the scale and evidence of the sexual exploitation was too widespread. Levi’s was forced to acknowledge this was happening in its supply chain. On 15 August 2019, Levi’s issued a statement accepting this to be a global, industry-wide issue, and promising to improve the lives of the workers.

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Lesotho is not an outlier. Garment workers in Bangladesh, India, Brazil, Mexico, Sri Lanka, China, Turkey, and Vietnam have reported being assaulted, stalked, groped, harassed and raped in factories producing jeans for international brands. A study last year found 80% of garment workers in Bangladesh have experienced or witnessed sexual violence and harassment at work.

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At least one pair of jeans each of us has worn was stitched by a woman sexually assaulted or harassed in the same factory.

(Tomorrow: Jeans industry during the pandemic).

Ravi