Child labor

Gap unit using India\'s child labour\'

Interna tional clothing firm Gap Inc has called an emergency meeting with its suppliers in India after a report in a newspaper claimed that some of its clothes were made in a sweatshop in New Delhi by using child labour.
The investigation by the Observer has revealed that children as young as 10 years old were found working in filthy conditions in a textile factory in Shahpur Jat area of South Delhi.
The children, working in conditions close to slavery, were producing clothes destined for Gap Kids for the Christmas season. The children, according to the report, revealed that they worked long hours, up to 16 hours a day, without any salary and faced threats and beatings too.
The children said they had been sold to the sweatshop by their families in Bihar and West Bengal and would not be allowed to leave until they had repaid that fee.
The unnamed employer had told the children that they could not be paid as they were trainees.
"I was bought from my parents' village in Bihar and taken to New Delhi by train," a 10-year-old boy called Amitosh is quoted in the report as saying. "The men came looking for us in July. They had loudspeakers in the back of a car and told my parents that, if they sent me to work in the city, they won't have to work in the farms. My father was paid a fee for me and I was brought down with 40 other children. The journey took 30 hours and we weren't fed. I've been told I have to work off the fee the owner paid for me so I can go home, but I am working for free. I am a shaagird (an apprentice). The supervisor has told me because I am learning I don't get paid. It has been like this for four months."
Another boy from West Bengal told the Observer that some of the boys in the sweatshop had been badly beaten.
"Our hours are hard and violence is used against us if we don't work hard enough. This is a big order for abroad, they keep telling us that," young Jivaj, who is described as looking about 12 years old, has been quoted as saying.
"Last week, we spent four days working from dawn until about 1 o'clock in the morning the following day. I was so tired I felt sick," he said with tears streaming down his face.
"If any of us cried we were hit with a rubber pipe. Some of the boys had oily cloths stuffed in the mouths as punishment."
The children were discovered 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 report added.
The hand-stitched tops, which would have been sold for about £20, were destined for sale during the Christmas season.
Gap said it was unaware that order for clothing had been improperly subcontracted to a sweatshop using child labour. It also announced it had withdrawn the garments involved and had started an investigation of breaches of the ethical code imposed by it three years ago.
"At Gap, we firmly believe that under no circumstances is it acceptable for children to produce or work on garments," a spokesperson was quoted as saying. "It is clear that one of our vendors violated this agreement, and a full investigation is under way."
Source: Deccan Chronicle, 29th October, 2007