Clothing Store The Gap to Stop Using Child Slavery

By Pamela Mortimer

Gap, Inc. has fired an Indian manufacturing company for using cihld slaves to complete orders for the trendy clothing store. According to sources, the Indian factory was hired by a subcontractor of Gap, Inc. The conditions were unknown to Gap President Marka Hansen, who made a statement on Sunday regarding the horrific working conditions present at the factory. Hansen had been shown a video of children at work in the sweatshop located in New Delhi, India.

"It's deeply, deeply disturbing to all of us," Hansen said. "I feel violated and I feel very upset and angry with our vendor and the subcontractor who made this very, very, very unwise decision."

Hansen pointed the finger at an unauthorized subcontractor for one of its Indian vendors and said "the subcontractor's relationship with the Gap had been terminated".

Hansen added that the garments allegedly produced by the children represented a small percentage of a single order placed with the Indian vendor and that the clothes would not be sold in stores.

"We strictly prohibit the use of child labor," Hansen said in a statement. "Gap has a history of addressing challenges like this head-on, and our approach to this situation will be no exception.

"In 2006, Gap Inc. ceased business with 23 factories due to code violations. We have 90 people located around the world whose job is to ensure compliance with our Code of Vendor Conduct."

The Observer, a British newspaper, reportedly spoke to children as young as 10 years old who claimed they were working 16 hours a day for no pay. The newspaper described the factory as a "derelict industrial unit" where the "hallways were flowing with excrement from a flooded toilet".

One 10-year-old boy told the Observer that he was sold to the factory by his parents.

"'I was bought from my parents' village in [the northern state of] Bihar and taken to New Delhi by train," the boy said. "The men came looking for us in July. They had loudspeakers in the back of a car and told my parents that, if they sent me to work in the city, they won't have to work in the farms. My father was paid a fee for me, and I was brought down with 40 other children."

Another boy, 12, said he was forced to work from dawn until 1 a.m. and was so tired that he felt sick. If any of the children cried, he continued, they would be hit with a rubber pipe or have an oily cloth stuffed in their mouths.

The children were saddled with the task of producing hand-stitched blouses for the Christmas market in Europe and the United States to be sold at Gap Kids stores.