labor8

Carpet manufacturers and the carpet export industry in Pakistan, as well as
carpet importers and retailers in the USA and other Western countries, have
announced that child labor no longer exists in the carpet-weaving industry. They
have attacked UNICEF, the Society and other charities as "do-gooders", the
phrase used by the Chef Executive Officer of the largest carpet importer in the
United Kingdom.

The ordinary American consumer, with family commitments and a mortgage, does
not have the time and money to travel to Pakistan to verify these claims.
Who do you believe?
UNICEF and the other charities like this Society have no financial interest in
making such claims. The carpet industry does.

Since these claims have been made by the industry, the Society has funded a
Mission to Pakistan which shows the extensive use of children in the industry.
Many of them, as you can see, are very young.
The photographs on this page are from a recent undercover investigation in
Pakistan by the Society, which revealed that young children still work in horrific
conditions making carpets which we buy and put in our homes. The photographs
are black and white because the sweatshop is very dark and the use of a
flashlight on the camera would have alerted the master to that photographs were
being taken secretly.
The handmade woolen carpet industry is extremely labor intensive and one of the
largest export earners for India, Pakistan, Nepal and Morocco. During the past 20
years, it has been one of the fastest growing industries and most of this growth
has been achieved through the use of child labor.
“children work long hours for very little pay. Indeed, in many cases [...], they may
receive no pay whatsoever”
The total number of children involved in the industry in South Asia is very difficult
to assess, but in India the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude estimates that
between 200,000 and 300,000 children are involved, most of them in the carpet
belt of Uttar Pradesh in central India.
Similar numbers may be working in Pakistan and up to 150,000 in Nepal.For years
the industry claimed in its propaganda that the nimble fingers of children are
essential to form the intricate designs used in the carpets.This claim has long
been discredited and the most expensive carpets are generally made by adults,
with children producing the low and middle grade carpets.
There are two main advantages of child labor to the carpet makers:

their very low wages and their docile acceptance of terrible working conditions;
their good eyesight, which allows them to perform intricate work in very poor
light.
As a result, many of the children, who may begin working as young as 6 or 7 years
old, are severely ill by the time they are adults. Their eyesight is damaged and
lung diseases are common as a result of the dust and fluff from the wool used in
the carpets.

To make matters worse, many of the children employed in the industry have been
separated from their families.
The carpet industry is very complex, but is generally controlled by the export
companies. These exporters arrange, either directly or through contractors, for a
carpet to be produced on a particular loom. The looms are normally owned by
small entrepreneurs and range from single looms in private houses to small
factories with 30 or more looms. The exporter supplies the wool and design and
after a price and quality is agreed, the loom owner is responsible for producing
the carpet to specification. Agents for the loom masters and owners find their
workforce from a variety of sources.
The children may be their own children and other children from within the
village. These remain in their own family.
The child labor may also be obtained from other areas (normally poorer regions)
by purchasing or coercing children from Bihar in north-east India to Uttar
Pradesh; or from small villages in Nepal to Kathmandu; or from outlying villages to
small towns in Pakistan; and even children trafficked from other countries, such
as children imported from west Nepal to Uttar Pradesh. Removed from their
families, these are, without doubt, the worst sufferers.
All the children work long hours for very little pay. Indeed, in many cases,
particularly when they live at the looms, their wages are reduced to pay for food
and lodging, or they may receive no pay whatsoever, for example, where the loom
owner applies their wages to cover the advances given to their parents and the
agents who brought them in the first place. This is a form of debt bondage (which
is defined as a slavery-like institution by Article 1(a) of Article 7(a) of the
Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and
Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery 1956) and is quite common in the
industry throughout South Asia.
A great many of them are children who have been kidnapped by slavers from
their parents and sold to the loom master.They are locked behind bars and
beaten. They are poorly fed and receive no wages.
In the past ten years, there has been a gathering movement in India, Pakistan and
Nepal to end the exploitation of so many children in the industry. This activity has
been supported by the Anti-Slavery Society. As a result, the UN Working Group
on Contemporary Forms of Slavery and the International Labor Organization have
called on the Union Government (ie, the federal government) in India and the
federal government in Pakistan to enforce their own laws and to stop the use of
child labor.