Child Labor in Textile Industry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to the report, “children working within these sectors may have to endure long working hours and work with dangerous tools, machinery or chemicals. While producing these goods, often in small workshops or homes, they face dangers that may include work with hazardous chemicals and sharp objects, cramped conditions with low lighting, long hours, poor hygiene conditions, operating heavy machinery and carrying heavy loads”.

 

 A number of joint initiatives of a quite large number of garment brands, unions and (other) civil society organizations including the US-based Fair Labor Association, the Dutch Fair Wear Foundation, the British Ethical Trading Initiative and the European Business Social Compliance Initiative are now starting to tackle the issue. It is a first beginning of which the results still have to be seen in practice. About the brand C&A the update mentions that one of their suppliers Sumeru Knits will not work anymore with spinning mills that use the Sumangali Scheme from August 2012. C&A also supports the work of local organizations to get girls out of the spinning mills and into school or vocational training. 

 

Home For All program officer Jack Fernandez states: "Governments at the buying end of the supply chain are failing to ensure that companies live up to the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.  The state duty to protect and the corporate responsibility to respect human rights as laid down in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights are not being respected."

 

Home For All call upon all corporate actors along the global garment supply chain – from spinning mills to fashion brands – to be more transparent about their supplier base. They have to be more ambitious in detecting and addressing human rights violations by  allowing trade unions and civil society organizations to play their  specific roles. In addition, buying practices (including pricing) need  to allow for decent working conditions so that girls and young women in  Tamil Nadu no longer have to face appalling working conditions that are  tantamount to forced labor.