Better Factories Cambodia (BFC) has published its latest ‘Synthesis Report’ based on factory visits and assessments.  Among its findings, the report shows that BFC’s transparency programme a publically available overview of factory’s performance on 21 critical working conditions, is having considerable positive impact on labour standard compliance in garment factories.

The proportion of factories in compliance with all 21 issues increased from 30 percent at the launch of public reporting in 2014 to 46 percent today, with the number of violations decreasing from 281 to 197 over the period.

Commenting on the trend, Esther Germans, BFC Programme Manager, said: “It’s clear that publically reporting critical issues continues to drive positive change in factories. We look forward to discussing with our partners on how we can expand the scope of this successful initiative.”

Most significant improvement is in factories’ training of workers on emergency evacuation (17 percent improvement), and factories ensuring that exit doors are unlocked during working hours (13 percent). Both issues are essential to increase workers’ safety in emergencies.

The report, the 34th Synthesis Report on Working Conditions in Cambodia’s garment sector, provides an overview of working conditions in the Cambodian garment and footwear industry and is collated using data collated from 395 assessment reports produced from 439 factory visits between May 1, 2016 and April 30, 2017.

Click here to download the report in English or Khmer and the PAC statement in English or Khmer.