Factories in Ethiopia making clothes for top global brands pay their workers far less than counterparts in other low-paying countries says the Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.

Ethiopia has no official minimum wage for the private sector. The low monthly wage paid to garment workers in Ethiopia does not cover their basic needs. Even after additional payments of attendance bonuses and expenses for food and transportation, most workers struggle to get by. As a result of the dissatisfaction among the workforce, factories replace all of their workers every 12 months on an average, pushing training costs up and efficiency down.

Ethiopia is Africa’s second most populous country, with about 105 million people who still largely survive off agriculture. Hawassa Industrial Park is one of five manufacturing hubs in Ethiopia. It is the largest specialized apparel and textile park in Africa and was built in just nine months, with Chinese help. The park has modern halls where leather and textile products are produced for the European and American markets. The park has 25,000 workers and there are plans to increase the workforce to 60,000. Many young women working at the sites receive very little training and face cultural conflicts with managers from south or east Asia.