US: Indian 'slave' children found making low-cost clothes destined for Gap

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 within
themselves at how they spend their money.'

Gap's own policy is that if it discovers children being used by
contractors to make its clothes that contractor must remove the child
from the workplace, provide it with access to schooling and a wage,
and guarantee the opportunity of work on reaching a legal working
age.

It is a policy to stop the abuse of children. And in Amitosh's case it
appears not to have succeeded. Sold into bonded labour by his family
this summer, Amitosh works 16 hours a day hand-sewing clothing. Beside
him on a wooden stool are his only belongings: a tattered comic, a
penknife, a plastic comb and a torn blanket with an elephant
motif.

'I was bought from my parents' village in [the northern state of]
Bihar and taken to New Delhi by train,' he says. '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 [a
pupil]. The supervisor has told me because I am learning I don't get
paid. It has been like this for four months.'

The derelict industrial unit in which Amitosh and half a dozen other
children are working is smeared in filth, the corridors flowing with
excrement from a flooded toilet.

Behind the youngsters huge piles of garments labelled Gap - complete
with serial numbers for a new line that Gap concedes it has ordered
for sale later in the year - lie completed in polythene sacks, with
official packaging labels, all for export to Europe and the United
States in time for Christmas.

Jivaj, who is from West Bengal and looks around 12, 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.

'Last week, we spent four days working from dawn until about one
o'clock in the morning the following day. I was so tired I felt sick,'
he whispers, 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 our mouths as punishment.'

Manik, who is also working for free, claims - unconvincingly - to be
13. 'I want to work here. I have somewhere to sleep,' he says looking
furtively behind him. 'The boss tells me I am learning. It is my duty
to stay here. I'm learning to be a man and work. Eventually, I will
make money and buy a house for my mother.'

The discovery of the sweatshop has the potential to cause major
embarrassment for Gap. Last week, a spokesman admitted that children
appeared to have been caught up in the production process and rather
than risk selling garments made by children it vowed it would withdraw
tens of thousands of items identified by The Observer.

He said: 'At Gap, 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 sub-contractors are required
to guarantee that they will not use child labour to produce
garments.

'It is clear that one of our vendors violated this agreement, and a
full investigation is under way. After learning of this situation, we
immediately took steps to stop this work order and to prevent the
product from ever being sold in our stores. We are also convening a
meeting of our suppliers where we will reinforce our prohibition on
child labour.

'Gap Incorporated has a rigorous factory-monitoring programme in place
and last year we revoked our approval of 23 factories for failing to
comply with our standards.

'We are proud of this programme and we will continue to work with
government, trade unions and other independent organisations to put an
end to the use of child labour.'

In recent years Gap has made efforts to rebrand itself as a leader in
ethical and socially responsible manufacturing, after previously being
criticised for practices including the use of child
labour.