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Children in the slums of Chittagong, Bangladesh
Children living in the slums of Chittagong, Bangladesh. Children often work because poverty drives them to support themselves and their families. Photograph: Don McPhee
Children living in the slums of Chittagong, Bangladesh. Children often work because poverty drives them to support themselves and their families. Photograph: Don McPhee

Child free fashion: a new label aims to end exploitation

This article is more than 8 years old

A foundation is piloting a label to guarantee clothes are child labour free, but when auditing failed to prevent tragedies like Rana Plaza, campaigners doubt its ability to create change

Children are ubiquitous in the fashion supply chain: from the cotton farms of Uzbekistan, to the mills of India and the tanneries and factories of Bangladesh. Children are employed to produce and sell clothing because they can be paid less and exploited more than adults, and children work because poverty drives them to need to support themselves and their families.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) defines child labour as “work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development”. Worldwide, it denies 168 million children the right to education, leisure, and a healthy life.

How could this change? Can fashion clean up its act?

Child Labor Free, a new foundation based in New Zealand has introduced a labelling system that hopes to be able to certify clothing as child labour free. Brands that apply for accreditation provide information about their manufacturing, components and sourcing, as well as evidence that they do not use child labour. This is then assessed by global accountancy firm EY (formerly Ernst & Young). A report is provided and site inspections recommended where EY believe it is necessary.

The label is being piloted with five New Zealand fashion brands which have signed up to the fee-paying accreditation system. Child Labor Free states that the frequency of unannounced factory inspections “will depend on the specific circumstances of each company, the local laws in place and determined levels of risk for each location.”

“We are passionate about education and outcomes for young children,” explains Nikki Prendergast, founder and director of Child Labor Free. “We started asking ourselves about where our resources were coming from, how were they made, who is making them and couldn’t really find a suitable answer to that question … we wanted to create a marker for consumers and brands to engage together to ensure a transparent dialogue and better outcomes for children.”

Would unions do better?

But can social auditing take on issues with systemic causes and cope with such complex supply chains? In 2011 the ethical audit industry was estimated to be worth $80m (£51.4m) a year. It is a vast industry that did not prevent disasters like Rana Plaza or the Ali Enterprises garment factory fire in Karachi. Ali Enterprises had been given a prestigious SA8000 certificate by Social Accountability International (SAI) just weeks before it burnt down, killing 289 garment workers.

In 1992 the ILO established the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC). Simon Steyne, head of social partner engagement partnerships and advocacy at IPEC, is sceptical about the ability of social auditing to bring change to fashion supply chains believing instead that: “The best guarantee against child labour is an independent trade union presence in a workplace and a collective bargaining agreement.”

In such a complex and subcontracted industry, Steyne considers factory inspections to be unreliable. He can recall his own supposedly secret visits to factories where he would find numerous empty workstations “with very little chairs”. Trade unions on the other hand turn workers into “24/7 monitors against child labour”.

Child Labor Free say that in asking brands to be “incredibly transparent,” and in investing in NGO projects, their approach is different. “When there is a problem, we’ll be talking about the problem and what’s been done to resolve it. We believe that brands are ready for this, we believe that our mark stands for transparency and we believe that there will be some really effective communication around issues that are found, how they’ve been dealt with and what the results were,” explains Prendergast.

Other organisations believe campaigning for a living wage is key to ending child labour. “From our perspective the best and most successful solutions to child labour are ones that address the cause and that means addressing poverty,” states Ilona Kelly, campaigns director at Labour Behind the Label.

“These kids are sent to work because it is the only way families can survive. That’s why our campaign for a living wage is so pertinent and necessary because a living wage addresses child labour by raising families out of abject poverty.”

There is also a risk, Steyne warns, that social auditing programmes like Child Labor Free get used by brands as “an intended tactic to hinder the development of mature labour relations systems … There are those who say we don’t need to talk to the workers in our value chain, we don’t need labour relations or collective bargaining because we will rely on social auditors.”

“The rights based approach, which puts the rights of working people in the garment industry, the viability of enterprise in the garment industry and the rights of the children of those families at the centre of the debate. And has them not as victims of other people’s actions but as people with agency who take part in this transformation towards a decent global garment sector – that,” Steyne says, “is the big answer.”

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