Gap and Illegal Child Labor in India

Recently, an investigative reporter by the name of Dan McDougall captured on video children working in India on garments sold by Gap Inc. The working conditions were horrible. More or less, the children were working as slaves. Bowls of fly-covered rice is bad enough, but to make it worse, they slept on the roof and worked without pay. Gap claims that the company has a strict no child labor policy and is currently investigating the situation. The president of Gap North America said “This is completely unacceptable and we do not ever, ever condone child labor making our garments.” As with much of child labor, these children were trafficked to their workplace. Understandably the most well known transportation for these kids is nicknamed the “child labor express.” Somehow, the parents are tricked into selling their children for a few dollars with a half-hearted promise that the children will be taken care of and paychecks will be sent back home. Of course, none of these obligations are ever fulfilled. Gap also boasts ethical outsourcing with almost 100 inspectors in 2,700 factories worldwide. However, since the company has so many inspectors, why did an investigative reporter uncover the child labor before the inspectors did?
If Gap Inc is so ethical about outsourcing, why do they outsource to India which is well known as the “child labor capital of the world”? I think this is entirely too ironic. Believe it or not, child labor is really against the law in India. At the same time, the child labor laws are not being enforced because the Indian government does not have the will to impose the laws on these people. The problem of child labor is entirely too large. Is it being temporarily ignored just because of its size, too immense of a task to undertake? This is ridiculous. Besides this, I think it is absurd that Gap has made the decision to destroy the clothes that the children had worked so tediously to make, all in the name of helping Gap’s reputation.

http://www.wzzm13.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=82832

Mindy Collins