JOURNAL
Children’s Rights International
Justice is Hope
An Initiative of World Congress on Family Law and Children’s Rights Inc.
Making them sweat
Bad PR for retailers caught using illegal sweatshops isn't enough. Those who profit from slave labour must be prosecuted and sent to jail.
Holly Burkhalter
November 7, 2007 6:30 PM
Comment is free
The news that Indian child slaves were making their products is a public relations nightmare for clothing retailer Gap but it could have a very happy outcome for the company and for child victims if the retail giant's proposed anti-sweatshop monitoring and labelling regimen takes hold in the garment industry.
Yet there is a vital role for local authorities that hasn't been mentioned by either Gap or its critics: the local thugs and traffickers who made a killing from the labour of young children should be prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to years of jail time. Making an example of them will encourage other suppliers to join the "sweatshop free" movement, and open their doors for regular inspection and monitoring.
This is by no means the first case of gross exploitation of forced child labour in India, and it won't be the last. The absence of significant penalties for offenders is the reason that this long-running problem persists and continues to victimise millions of children. The latest US state department report on trafficking and slavery could not report a single case of prosecution and conviction for child labour exploitation last year.
India's laws are not the problem. The crime of bonded slave labour and child labour carry two and three year jail terms, respectively. Unfortunately, neither child workers nor enslaved "bonded" workers typically have access to legal protection, and abusive factory and mill owners almost never see the inside of a court room, much less a jail cell.
Indian lawyers working for my organisation, International Justice Mission, and the police, prosecutors and magistrates with whom they work have made the protection of the law a reality for forced labour slaves. They have secured the generous compensation for victims of forced labour slavery that is their legal right, including 20,000 rupees (about £240) and official release certificates from the courts for over a thousand slaves plus their families. These precious legal documents provide protection to freed slaves when outraged owners attempt to take their "property" back.
We have argued in the Indian courts for criminals' accountability as well, but until recently we've never seen a prison sentence longer than one day. Last month, an Indian magistrate in Chennai imposed a year-long prison term on a sweet stall owner who exploited, abused and enslaved six workers.
This kind of prison sentence adds a very important calculation to a slave owner or child-labour exploiting factory manager, and it must be a core component of the child labour regimen that the Gap is developing. It is one thing to lose your contract with a foreign company, it's quite another to go to jail for 12 months. More such convictions could reverberate in slave-burdened industries like garment manufacturing - to the resounding honour of the Indian authorities of good will who investigate and prosecute child labour and slavery.
But today, the Indian government, for its part, shares in the blame with Western importers for tolerating child and adult slavery by both foreign and Indian establishments. Foreign companies outsourcing production to India and the Indian authorities at the highest levels of government should reach an official understanding that includes cooperation in investigating, prosecuting and convicting those who use child labour and forced labour slavery and creating, at last, real deterrence for crimes that have no place in today's India.