The GAP Using Child Labor in Indian Sweatshop?

Child labor in clothing sweat shops? This is never good PR for The GAP or good in general. The Observer reported that “Indian ‘slave’ children found making low-cost clothes destined for Gap.” Child labor in such working conditions has been a long time issue within the clothes making industry. One has to wonder how often this practice goes on and just how often it is actually reported. The comment from a Gap spokesperson was as follows:

“At Gap, we firmly believe that under no circumstances is it acceptable for children to produce or work on garments,” the spokesman was quoted as saying. “It is clear that one of our vendors violated this agreement, and a full investigation is under way.”

Gap Stores Using Child Labor in Indian Sweatshop, British Newspaper Reports

LONDON —  A British newspaper reported Sunday that it found children as young as 10 making clothes in a sweatshop in New Delhi, India, that the Gap fashion chain planned to sell in the West.

The Observer quoted the children as saying they had been sold to the sweatshop by their families in Indian states such as Bihar and West Bengal and would not be allowed to leave until they had repaid that fee.

Some, working as long as 16 hours a day to hand-sew clothing, said they were not being paid at the unidentified Gap supplier because their employer said they were still trainees.

The Observer quoted one boy identified only as Jivaj as saying that child employees who cried or did not work hard enough were hit with a rubber pipe or had oily cloths stuffed into their mouths.

The paper said the sweatshop, or “derelict industrial unit,” that it found during its investigation in New Delhi was “smeared in filth, the corridors flowing with excrement from a flooded toilet. (FOX News)