Workers turn models on political catwalk
About 150 garment workers turned out to the Phnom Penh offices of the United Sisterhood Alliance NGO on Sunday to watch a politically charged fashion show entitled “Beautiful Clothes, Ugly Reality.” Aimed to highlight “the income gap between Cambodian garment workers and the selected CEOs of brand companies,” according to show organizers, the two-hour program featured a medley of cat-walking, political theater and speeches calling for a $160 monthly basic wage. … After a brief dance described as “crackdown hip-hop,” which featured four young men “krumping” with their arms over house music punctuated by gun-shot sound effects, a group of about a dozen female garment workers, on their day off work, emerged onto the catwalk. The workers-turned-models, who served as the stars of the rest of the show, presented a range of colorful clothing that had no unifying theme other than having been produced in a Cambodian garment factory. … The models were then joined by a flurry of others, dressed as protesters and activists wearing the “$160” headbands of the nationwide garment worker strike that began late last year. The group marched in frenetic circuits of the catwalk until the inevitable theater of repression arrived in the form of men dressed up as the notorious, helmeted district security guards. With some of the guards armed with toy rifles, the forces and the protesters tussled in a choreographed back-and-forth. A protester was then shot dead in a dramatization of the strike repressions of January. After the show, garment workers who attended said that the demands for a $160 basic monthly wage were still alive in their minds. …
Mech Dara and Alex Willemyns
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/workers-turn-models-on-political-catwalk-59540/
