Amna Chaudhry Explores the Conditions of Female Textile Workers in Pakistan
Working as a human rights reporter in Karachi, Pakistan, Amna Chaudhry had the opportunity to interview factory workers during labor strikes and learn about their terrible working conditions. Now a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) student at the University of Minnesota and the 2025-2026 Scribe for Human Rights, Chaudhry reflects on her experience as a Scribe and the process of drafting her novel on three female textile workers in Pakistan. Read more below.
Join Chaudhry on Thursday, March 26, from 2:30-3:30 PM for the event, “Exploring Feminist Resistance through Fiction: A Scribe for Human Rights Presentation.” Learn more about the event.
In 2020, while the world was under COVID lockdown, a series of labour strikes broke out in textile factories across Karachi, Pakistan. These strikes were led by textile workers who hadn’t been paid their wages in many months. A drop in demand from the global North meant that many major fashion conglomerates such as H&M and Zara, businesses that regularly employ textile workers from the global South on an exploitative contract system, refused to pay factories in Pakistan for orders that had already been fulfilled. Factories in turn did not pay their workers. As a human rights reporter, I had the chance to interview factory workers at the time and learn about their terrible working conditions. The stories of female textile workers organizing and participating in the strike stayed with me beyond the ambit of this particular incident. I knew that I wanted to continue writing about how female textile workers from the global South navigate the complex nexus that make up the global supply chain, including foreign inspection companies, foreign retailers, local managers and factory owners.
During my time as an MFA student at the University of Minnesota, I began to draft a novel on three female textile workers from Pakistan. In 2025, I received the Scribe for Human Rights fellowship for this project, enabling me to get started with this project over the summer. This fellowship allowed me to conduct research on my project in a manner that speaks to the particular conditions of Pakistan’s textile workers. I was able to maintain correspondence with female garment workers, read case reports on the conditions of textile factories in South Asia, and ground myself in both the historical context as well as the present moment for garment workers from the global South. Through the study and research made possible by this fellowship, my characters slowly came to life and a story began to form.
The writer Toni Morrison based Beloved on the story of escaped slave Margaret Gardner, a woman whose 1856 trial for infanticide was widely reported. Morrison came across a reprint of the story in the 1970’s and was struck by the horrific choices black mothers were forced to make. Beloved, a novel about the enduring trauma of slavery, was partially written so that we may never forget Gardner’s story. In my work, I attempt to use human rights scholarship and reporting in much the same way Morrison used news reporting. These materials help me take stock of the present moment, anchoring me in the historical and material struggles of South Asian women, while also offering me avenues to imagine the rich lives of my characters beyond the pages of the report.
