Forced child labor is one of the big issues in the apparel industry. Since the public consciousness was raised by the sweat-shop issues years back, more and more manufacturers are taking harder looks at where the raw materials come from and how they are harvested.
Uzbekistan is one of the top cotton-producing countries in the world. But the cotton there is picked by up to 200,000 children who are forced to work in the fields for little or no pay. Refusal to work means beatings or detention.
Most of Uzbekistan’s cotton ends up in Europe, where various manufacturers use it in all manner of cotton apparel.
Some of the manufacturers turn a blind eye to the source of the cotton. The Environmental Justice Foundation ran these quotes by major cotton traders:
• Paul Kinney, President of Cargill Cotton UK, was recently quoted as saying "Cargill has nothing to do with picking cotton in those countries. I have no further comment and prefer to end this conversation."
• In February 2004, a spokesman for Cargill was quoted as saying that to its knowledge children who picked cotton did so to help their parents during the harvest.
• Thomas Reinhart, who runs a Swiss family-owned company that is one of the biggest traders in central Asian cotton, said he had never heard of the use of child labour in the region. "We buy our cotton from government agencies and don't know what happens out in the fields."
At Green Man T-Shirts, we do not buy any organic cotton products that are made with cotton from Uzbekistan. Our main supplier, Continental, states this on their website:
Continental® Clothing Company has begun a major initiative, in collaboration with the Environmental Justice Foundation, to help stop child slavery in Uzbekistan (amongst other environmental and social disasters that are happening on a unimaginable scale).
Continental® is simply following the advice of the EJF, and in September will begin to label all their garments with the ‘Country of Origin’ of the cotton (normally it is the country of manufacture of the garment which is shown on the label), in order to assure consumers that the cotton does not originate from Uzbekistan, which is the world’s second largest exporter of raw cotton.
Director of Continental® Clothing, Philip Charles states, “ Why am I really doing this? As a large user of cotton, and with our influential position in the T-shirt industry, Continental® Clothing has an opportunity, even if not a responsibility, to raise awareness and promote consumer action on issues where we feel strongly - such as the state orchestrated child slavery in Uzbekistan. And the situation in Uzbekistan is hideous – the state torturing dissenters by dipping them in boiling water! If a person knew they were clothed in Uzbek cotton, their skin would crawl.
"The wonderful thing is that it costs us nothing to change our labels, and may cause consumers to question the T-shirts they buy and so switch them on to cotton T-shirts which guarantee that certain positive social and environmental conditions are met. There are many charities and individuals raising awareness of these critical issues, but they are all outside of our industry looking in; it takes the people personally and intimately involved in the cotton industry to make a stand, and it is us who can make the difference.
"And I ask other apparel manufacturers to follow suit, and do the same. If this happens, we can create a snowball effect and force change through economic pressure. I liken this to what happened when Dolphin Friendly Tuna was introduced as a marketing tool, now you would be hard pressed to find non-DFT on supermarket shelves. I am afraid to say that there is politically no chance at all that the Karimov regime (in Uzbekistan) would voluntarily go along with any of the key recommendations (of the ILO). Compulsion is needed to force change, and a consumer boycott is the way to attain that.”
Green Man T-Shirts agrees. We hope you do, too.
