Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Latest Procurement News
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"Corporate Social Responsibility"
Observer investigation poses ethical sourcing dilemma
Children as young as seven are working up to 10 hours-a-day to cater for the booming demand for luxury cotton, an investigation by The Observer has found.
The newspaper discovered that children were being employed in Egypt to remove bollworm from cotton leaves and were often handling plants “drenched” in pesticides whilst earning the equivalent of just 20 pence a day.
The cotton industry is worth billions, with some of the UK’s largest retailers – including John Lewis, Tesco and Marks & Spencer, sourcing the material from Egypt.
“In Egypt it is estimated that approximately 30 per cent of cotton-pickers are children of 12 or 13 years old,” said Safia Minney, the founder of ethical fashion firm People Tree.
“If the buyer paid a fair price for cotton, it would enable their partners to harvest cotton and allow parents to educate their children.”
Juliette Williams, a spokeswomen for the Environmental Justice Foundation, said that retailers in Britain still had little idea of where the cotton they sell is sourced from.
“Egyptian cotton is synonymous with luxury, yet the reality behind its production is endemic child labour - up to a million children are working in the cotton fields each year,” she told The Observer.
“This is a scandal that companies need to redress. Yet when we have pressed companies on their supply chains, many tend to fudge the issue and simply say that they require their suppliers to meet certain standards within the factories that produce clothing.”
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