Home
Log-in
Asian Development Bank: “We intend to expand cooperation with Uzbekistan.”
The thickest thread in the interlocking economic web that keeps child slavery in place is of course the international cotton purchasers that allow the regime to profit from exploitation. But international development banks have a not-insignificant role too, considering they provide loans for agricultural projects, technical assistance, and, critically, political cover for this appalling practice, with their “hear no evil, see no evil” approach. Read more
Slave Nation: new report from the Environmental Justice Foundation
Downloadable here, the latest documentation from the U.K.-based advocacy group should put to rest any government denials of children’s involvement in the 2009 harvest. Incidentally, upon feeling (ever so slightly) more pressure from European governments and international organizations, Uzbekistan’s government has recently felt it necessary to step up just such denials (more on this later).
Thinking about 2009, it might be possible to conclude simply “more of the same.” But what stands out is how successful the Uzbek government’s strategy has been, of stepping up repression at home, and obfuscation abroad.
Despite clear evidence of abusive practices, they seem to have sold their entire harvest, quite a bit of which ends up in clothes sold in the West. From the report:
Tags: Environmental Justice Foundation > traceability
2010: Uzbekistan’s Year of the Harmoniously Developed Generation
You can’t make this stuff up, folks. President Karimov envisions 2010 as the year of the “Harmoniously Developed Generation,” and has signed a package of instructions to his government to bring this about. I wonder if harmonious development includes a few months hard labor in his cotton fields? Read more
Gymboree’s empty promises
It’s interesting that Gymboree feels at least a tiny obligation to respond to the query I sent upon receiving word of its charitable leanings:
-Original Message–
From: cassandra_cavanaugh@yahoo.com
Date: 1/4/2010 4:34:58 PM
To: customer_service@gymboree.com
Subject: Fw: Happy New Year From Our Chairman & CEO [#144624]
Dear Mr. McCauley,
Support for a children’s hospital in no way excuses the misery your corporation is bringing to the children of Uzbekistan , forced by their authoritarian government to pick the cotton that goes into Gymboree clothes.
You have been contacted several times by the International Labor Rights Forum, asking you to pledge, as many other corporations (Gap, J. Crew, Walmart) have, to exclude Uzbek cotton from your supply chain. Why have you not responded?
If in 2010 you pledge to become part of the solution for Uzbekistan ’s exploited children, instead of part of the problem, I can go back to purchasing Gym Mart’s clothes for my small daughters. When I look at them, I often think of their age-mates in Uzbekistan , missing school from September to December, and there’s no way we can support a company that inflicts this upon them.
Sincerely,
Cassandra Cavanaugh
Some customer service drone at Gymboree finally sent of a formulaic response to my queries about its Uzbekistan policy (see the email below). Though Eric talks of “minimum standards” that vendors have to meet, he refuses to answer the question–do they use Uzbek cotton? Sounds like Gym Mart brands doesn’t know…and doesn’t want to find out. In which case, their “minimum standards” don’t mean a thing.
RE: Happy New Year From Our Chairman & CEOTue, January 5, 2010 12:49:56 PM
| From: | “Gym Orders orders@gymboree.com” <orders@gymboree.com> Add to Contacts | |
| To: | cassandra_cavanaugh@yahoo.com |
Dear Cassandra,
Thank you for contacting Gymboree Customer Service.
As we research prospective vendors and factories, we select companies that make compliance with laws and labor standards a top priority and whose policies and practices are consistent with our corporate mission to celebrate childhood. Gymboree does not allow forced child labor anywhere in the organization, nor anywhere in the supply chain. For all factories or vendors that we work with, we set forth the minimum standards and ethical requirements that they must comply with in order to conduct business with Gymboree.
As a condition of doing business with Gymboree, we require each factory and vendor to sign a product purchase agreement as a commitment that it will adhere to our Terms. Specifically, our Terms require, among other things, full compliance with all applicable laws and regulations including, but not limited to, environmental, wage and hour, and worker health laws, and the child labor, minimum wage and overtime requirements of those laws. All factories and vendors must also certify, among other things, that goods will not be produced with any use of child, forced, or prison labor, and that all employees will be provided with safe, clean working conditions.
Additionally, for many years now, Gymboree has used a reputable, independent auditing firm to evaluate factories prior to engagement and to routinely perform on-site inspections in order to actively monitor and assess factory operations to ensure compliance.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact us and for giving us the opportunity to provide you with information regarding Gymboree’s production standards and practices.
Sincerely,
Eric
Gymboree Customer Service
877 449 6932
www.gymboree.com
This last email has gone unanswered for a few weeks now, which tells us all we need to know about the seriousness of Gymboree’s pledges. If they won’t come out, either publicly or privately, specifically rejecting Uzbek cotton, all protestations are pretty meaningless.
This is nice, Eric, but it doesn’t address the issue I brought to your attention. Your factories, by which I assume you mean the factories that cut and sew the final product, or produce piece goods, might well be in compliance with local labor laws and your auditor may well have certified this. However, they are probably receiving yarn or cloth that includes cotton produced in Uzbekistan by forced child labor–that is, unless you have investigated the supply chain down to the primary commodity level and can certify otherwise.
Buying absolution? Charity to compensate for slavery
Gymboree is flaunting its charitable bona fides to customers, spreading news of its contributions to St. Judes Children’s Hospital. Never mind the Uzbek children crippled picking the cotton for its clothes have no access to plausible (or any) health care…
Matt McCauley just doesn’t seem to get it. More on that soon.
What you can do: email Gymboree, Fred’s and Abercrombie & Fitch
A select few retailers are getting closer to getting Uzbek cotton out of their supply chains. These include J. Crew, and Hanes, the t-shirt maker; some others don’t want to be named until they are further along in the process. But some corporations are just plain recalcitrant, including those named above.
When I go to buy school and play clothes for my 5 and 6 year olds, the last thing I want to think about are their Uzbek coevals shivering out in the fields getting dysentery from canal water. So in addition to returning the clothes I’ve bought from Gymboree lately, I’ll be sending this email to Matthew McCauley, Gymboree’s CEO, as well as his callous colleagues. Please join me.
LL Bean vows to exclude Uzbek cotton
Duckboots back on the shopping list
Of all the companies named by the International Labor Rights Forum on this year’s Sweatshop Hall of Shame for the use of Uzbek cotton, LL Bean was the fastest to respond, and vowed to (eventually) exclude it from their supply chain. Let’s hope their follow through is as exhaustive as their initial response was rapid.
Read more on the ILRF blog here. If you buy LL Bean products, take time to let their corporate office know that this is important to you.
The cost of cotton: no future
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports that Uzbek college students are regularly being expelled for refusing to pick cotton.
With that kind of a black mark in their past, any expelled student has little chance of ever completing higher education at home, which leaves the most likely option for survival in a country with mass un- and underemployment that of migrating for seasonal manual labor to Russia. But in the downturn, thousands of those migrants have been forced to return home…or forced into criminal activity.
LL Bean, Hanes, Gymboree: child exploiters
The International Labor Rights Forum released its list of Sweatshop Hall of Shame inductees for 2009. They include some of the best-known American retailers of children’s clothing…who refuse to stop profiting from the exploitation of children in Uzbekistan. ILRF writes:
While over 25 companies have committed to boycotting the use of Uzbekcotton until the government ends its abusive labor practices, there are stillmany companies that haven’t stepped up to the plate. Gymboree, Hanes,2and LL Bean have been contacted and yet they refuse to concretely address this pervasiveproblem.
While over 25 companies have committed to boycotting the use of Uzbek cotton until the government ends its abusive labor practices, there are still many companies that haven’t stepped up to the plate. Gymboree, Hanes and LL Bean have all been contacted, and yet they refuse to concretely address this pervasive problem.
My holiday shopping list sure has changed, and I hope many other consumers will do the same.
Tags: consumer action > ILRF > traceability
Dubai defaults…on human rights
It wasn’t too much of a surprise to read that the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre bonds were placed on credit watch negative recently, after being downgraded to junk status in June. Is a business model built on willful, knowing exploitation of forced child labor really sustainable in any sense?
Maybe five years ago, traders could claim ignorance about Uzbekistan’s mass child enslavement for the cotton harvest. Not anymore. Multiple actors have approached the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre with the evidence directly, at least from 2008. In July of this year the American Apparel and Footwear Association, in league with the (U.S.) National Retail Federation and two other major trade groups, wrote to the DMCC director, David Rutledge, and requested action. The DMCC, after all, is a critical actor enabling the Uzbek government to profit from it exploitive practices. And what action was taken? A big roll-out of new services at the Tashkent Cotton Fair, and more cotton purchases: the DMCC traded 20,000 tons by October and placed an order for 70,000 more! (Dr. Rutledge has since been replaced by the former head of the Dubai Gold Exchange, Malcolm Wall Morris.)
As the cotton works its way up the production chain, consumers are sending the message to retailers (and many retailers are reacting…and those that are not are being called on it). But the first-line facilitators of this outrage such as the DMCC have an obligation to act, too.
« go back — keep looking »About
Cotton Campaign RSS Feeds