More forced child labor uncovered
NEW DELHI -- With Gap under fire for selling clothes made by children in India, activists and police raided a sweatshop in New Delhi where 14 boys were embroidering women's garments Monday, illustrating the widespread problem of child labor in the South Asian country.
Monday's raid came a day after Britain's Observer newspaper reported children as young as 10 were found sewing clothes for the Gap in a New Delhi factory. It quoted the children as saying they had been sold to the sweatshop by their impoverished families and were not paid.
The story was similar in Monday's raid. The children were as young as 10, came from a poor farming district on the other side of the country, and said they had never been given promised wages for working up to 15 hours a day embroidering sequins onto the flowing saris worn by Indian women.
The working and living conditions in the sweatshop just blocks from where the Gap clothes were being made were grim -- the boys were packed into a filthy room, sleeping on the same floor where they sewed all day.
"I was waiting for my wages," said a thin 15-year-old boy who gave his name only as Hatiquallah, when asked why he stayed. "I don't want them now."
Speaking at a nearby police station after the raid, Hatiquallah said he had been brought to New Delhi three years ago by a man who promised him work -- and money. He never told his parents he was leaving.
The widespread use of child labor in India and the discovery that kids were making clothes for the Gap, which has 90 full-time inspectors who travel around the world, raises questions for India's garment exporting industry, a $10 billion a year business that grew by more than 20 percent last year.
Some of the biggest names in retailing make clothes in India, from Ralph Lauren to J.C. Penny. They all say oversight of contractors is strict, but child's rights activists disagree.
"International companies hire subcontractors and then forget about it. There is no monitoring at all," said Bhuwan Ribhu, a lawyer who works with Bachpan Bachao Andolan, or the Save Childhood Movement.
Gap responded quickly, saying the factory was being run by a subcontractor who was hired in violation of Gap's policies and none of the products made there will be sold in its stores.
Indian officials offered no comment on the Observer report. But child's rights activists said it was just a small part of a bigger problem, as evidenced by Monday's raid.
"The biggest responsibility here lies with the Indian government -- they don't develop a way of monitoring" factories, Ribhu said. "Where the Gap is concerned, at least they've taken a good pro-active stand against the subcontractors."
Many poor children in India are expected to work.
Sanjeev, an 11-year-old rescued Monday from the sweatshop, said his parents had sent him off to work in New Delhi two years ago. He had not heard from or seen them since and was worried they would be upset with him for not sending money home. "But I never got my wages," he said.
Ribhu's group organized Monday's raid, finding the sweatshop and tipping off police, who planned to question the boys and then hand them over to child welfare authorities. Ribhu said he would push authorities to return the children to their families in eastern India.