Archived Writing

<< back to the search results

Children’s stories at Christmas-time

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Last-minute bargains for a Christmas gift – say something as apparently innocent as a cotton shirt – can come at a terrible price, some dedicated reporters are revealing. That price can involve the vicious beating of a desperate 11 year-old child.

Since last decade’s media storm of shame broke around singer (and then talk-show host) Kathy Lee Gifford and her shock (yes, shock!) that apparel branded with her name had been exposed as coming from Third World sweatshops that exploited children, keen-eyed monitors of child labor have seen some (yes, some) improvement across the globe. Multinational companies as well as media stars, after all, have wanted to protect their image.

 

But now from Bangladesh have come reports, first on the UK’s Channel Four News, produced with the aid of hidden cameras by the main British commercial TV news outfit, ITN - and amplified in the United States by a detailed study from the National Labor Committee - that child labor is making an unwanted comeback.

 

One emblematic instance (one out of many) is the Harvest Rich clothing factory, situated two-hours’ drive from the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka. It has long supplied garments to Wal-Mart (notably their “Faded Glory” line of jeans) and Hanes in the US, and to equally well-known UK chainstores like Tesco and Marks & Spencer.

 

This month Women’s Wear Daily (not normally first on this media column’s reading list, I acknowledge) reported that Hanes had decided to cease business with Harvest Rich, on the grounds that factory management had concealed the truth about conditions, hours and pay.  It’s been left to the National Labor Committee to fill in the details, notably that on one surprise, post-midnight visit last month, Hanes officials found workers busily sewing boys’ jeans – well over 16 hours into a shift that had started at 8.00am. The visitors discovered they would typically work until 3.00am then sleep on the floor before beginning their shift again five hours later.

 

The NLC’s Director, Charles Kernaghan says: “we estimate about 200 to 300 children are working there and they work these long shifts, often fainting because they work standing up, fall down, and a supervisor comes over, kicks them to get them up again and force them back to work”.

 

Wal-Mart themselves are to conduct an audit of what goes on at this supplier - in January 2007. I imagine the factory will be ready for their visit.

 

One PR tactic the factory has already employed, in particular its chairman and CEO, M A Bari, has been to claim that the workers whom western visitors and TV viewers believe to be children are in fact adults - of restricted development because of their poverty. To quote verbatim from the company’s mealy-mouthed “talking points”, these workers “represent the poorer sectors of society where people are generally malnourished and age cannot be verified by eye examination”.

 

By way of reply, the NLC’s compelling website now carries video of several workers telling their horrific stories, including Halima (pictured above) whose job is cutting loose threads on Hanes underwear. Halima says she is 11 years old. The NCL cites the factory’s “malnourished adults” contention, and asks simply: “Who do you believe?”

 

The children’s video accounts tell of beatings, forced overtime, and wages - out of which they are often cheated - as low as 6 US cents an hour.

 

The argument I often hear in business media circles - as a near-excuse, I guess - is that “The Market”, the Western consumer, is so eager for cheapness in its clothing that it’s prepared to put up with such outrages. It’s more likely that there’s an information gap at work - one that the media need urgently to redress.

 

Says Kernaghan, “There aren’t many Americans who want their clothing made by an 11 year-old girl who’s beaten and forced to work seven days a week … I really don’t think American people want that kind of bargain. They just don’t know what lies behind the bargain.”