The president of Gap North America says a subcontractor accused of using child labor to sew Gap clothes in India has been fired and the Gap will not sell clothes made in the New Delhi sweatshop.
"It's deeply, deeply disturbing to all of us," Gap President Marka Hansen said after watching video of the children at work. "I feel violated and I feel very upset and angry with our vendor and the subcontractor who made this very, very, very unwise decision."
Hansen blamed the alleged abuse on an unauthorized subcontractor for one of its Indian vendors and said the subcontractor's relationship with the Gap had been "terminated."
"In 2006, Gap Inc. ceased business with 23 factories due to code violations. We have 90 people located around the world whose job is to ensure compliance with our Code of Vendor Conduct."
The Observer spoke to children as young as 10 who said they were working 16 hours a day for no pay. The paper described the workplace as a "derelict industrial unit" where the hallways were flowing with excrement from a flooded toilet.
One 10-year-old boy told the paper he was sold to the company by his parents.
"'I was bought from my parents' village in [the northern state of] Bihar and taken to New Delhi by train," The Observer quoted the boy as saying. "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."
Another boy, 12, said he worked from dawn until 1 a.m. and was so tired he felt sick, according to the paper. But if any of the children cried, he told The Observer, they would be hit with a rubber pipe or punished with an oily cloth stuffed in their mouths.
The children were producing hand-stitched blouses for the Christmas market in the United States and Europe at Gap Kids stores, according to the newspaper. The blouses were to carry a price of about $40, The Observer reported.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/29/gap.labor/index.html
"It's deeply, deeply disturbing to all of us," Gap President Marka Hansen said after watching video of the children at work. "I feel violated and I feel very upset and angry with our vendor and the subcontractor who made this very, very, very unwise decision."
Hansen blamed the alleged abuse on an unauthorized subcontractor for one of its Indian vendors and said the subcontractor's relationship with the Gap had been "terminated."
"In 2006, Gap Inc. ceased business with 23 factories due to code violations. We have 90 people located around the world whose job is to ensure compliance with our Code of Vendor Conduct."
The Observer spoke to children as young as 10 who said they were working 16 hours a day for no pay. The paper described the workplace as a "derelict industrial unit" where the hallways were flowing with excrement from a flooded toilet.
One 10-year-old boy told the paper he was sold to the company by his parents.
"'I was bought from my parents' village in [the northern state of] Bihar and taken to New Delhi by train," The Observer quoted the boy as saying. "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."
Another boy, 12, said he worked from dawn until 1 a.m. and was so tired he felt sick, according to the paper. But if any of the children cried, he told The Observer, they would be hit with a rubber pipe or punished with an oily cloth stuffed in their mouths.
The children were producing hand-stitched blouses for the Christmas market in the United States and Europe at Gap Kids stores, according to the newspaper. The blouses were to carry a price of about $40, The Observer reported.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/10/29/gap.labor/index.html
