Home > Indian ’slave’ children found making low-cost clothes destined for Gap

Indian ’slave’ children found making low-cost clothes destined for Gap

by Open-Publishing - Saturday 24 November 2007
4 comments

Edito Un/Employment International Social

By Ian McDougall in New Delhi

Child workers, some as young as 10, have been found working in a textile factory in conditions close to slavery to produce clothes that appear destined for Gap Kids, one of the most successful arms of the high street giant.

Speaking to The Observer, the children described long hours of unwaged work, as well as threats and beatings.

Gap said it was unaware that clothing intended for the Christmas market had been improperly subcontracted to a sweatshop using child labour. It announced it had withdrawn the garments involved while it investigated breach

The discovery of the children working in filthy conditions in the Shahpur Jat area of Delhi has renewed concerns about the outsourcing by large retail chains of their garment production to India, recognised by the United Nations as the world’s capital for child labour.

According to one estimate, more than 20 per cent of India’s economy is dependent on children, the equivalent of 55 million youngsters under 14.

The Observer discovered the children in a filthy sweatshop working on piles of beaded children’s blouses marked with serial numbers that Gap admitted corresponded with its own inventory. The company has pledged to convene a meeting of its Indian suppliers as well as withdrawing tens of thousands of the embroidered girl’s blouses from the market, before they reach the stores. The hand-stitched tops, which would have been sold for about £20, were destined for shelves in America and Europe in the next seven days in time to be sold to Christmas shoppers.

With endorsements from celebrities including Madonna, Lenny Kravitz and Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker, Gap has become one of the most successful and iconic brands in fashion. Last year the firm embarked on a huge poster and TV campaign surrounding Product Red, a charitable trust for Africa founded by the U2 lead singer Bono.

Despite its charitable activities, Gap has been criticised for outsourcing large contracts to the developing world. In 2004, when it launched its social audit, it admitted that forced labour, child labour, wages below the minimum wage, physical punishment and coercion were among abuses it had found at some factories producing garments for it. It added that it had terminated contracts with 136 suppliers as a consequence.

In the past year Gap has severed contracts with a further 23 suppliers for workplace abuses.

Gap said in a statement from its headquarters in San Francisco: ’We firmly believe that under no circumstances is it acceptable for children to produce or work on garments. These allegations are deeply upsetting and we take this situation very seriously. All of our suppliers and their subcontractors are required to guarantee that they will not use child labour to produce garments. In this situation, it’s clear one of our vendors violated this agreement and a full investigation is under way.’

Professor Sheotaj Singh, co-founder of the DSV, or Dayanand Shilpa Vidyalaya, a Delhi-based rehabilitation centre and school for rescued child workers, said he believed that as long as cut-price embroidered goods were sold in stores across Britain, America, continental Europe and elsewhere in the West, there would be a problem with unscrupulous subcontractors using children.

’It is obvious what the attraction is here for Western conglomerates,’ he told The Observer. ’The key thing India has to offer the global economy is some of the world’s cheapest labour, and this is the saddest thing of all the horrors that arise from Delhi’s 15,000 inadequately regulated garment factories, some of which are among the worst sweatshops ever to taint the human conscience.

’Consumers in the West should not only be demanding answers from retailers as to how goods are produced but looking deep with their money.

The Observer
http://cdurable.info/La-face-cachee-du-pret-a-porter.html
http://internationalnews.over-blog.com/article-14056218.html

Forum posts

  • Does this surprise us? That is what globalization is about! Exploit and discard. I never will shop again at GAP’s in my whole life time!

  • Until US CORPORATIONS are made accountable for the use of sweat shops, Illegal wiorkers and sending jobs out of the country, slavery will continue.

    CORPORATIONS in the US sent out the word that illegals were welcome in the US. They are hired almost exclusively in the Beef industry, the construction industry, the roofing industry, the poultry industry, etc.

    On MSNBC today there was news about a business who fired employees for not speaking English. The news stated that all the employees were legal immigrants, yet 4 workers did not speak English. Is this not a qualification for a work VISA? It was in my work in History classes in college.

    My eastern European friends could not get a Work or Student VISA without speaking English.

    Corporate America should be punished for opening up the border between Mexico and the US for corporate profiteering and allowing criminals and terrorists to come in and terrorize the men and women born in the US.

    This is a CORPORATE MESS and the CORPORATIONS should pay dearly.

  • What ZIONIST owns the GAP????........inquiring minds want to know..... after it is the GARMET Industry......

  • The Gap’s Philosophy:

    "Our purpose? Simply, to make it easy for you to express your personal style throughout your life.

    We have more than 150,000 passionate, talented people around the world who help bring this purpose to life for our customers. Across our company and embedded in our culture are key values that guide our success: integrity, respect, open-mindedness, quality and balance.

    Every day, we honor these values and exemplify our belief in doing business in a socially responsible way."

    http://www.gapinc.com/public/About/abt_purpose.shtml