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فروشگاه اينترنتی فرش تک .... حتما از گالری سايت ديدن
فرماييد .
تبديل عکس به تابلوفرش ...بهترين هديه به دوستان
و مديران
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Child Labor in the Carpet Industry
Children working in a carpet factory
(Photo taken by Mathias Heng during undercover
Mission funded by the Society. Copyright Mathias
Heng).
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.
The material in this report is based on a Mission to
South Asia by the Society's Secretary-General.
THE SOCIETY IN ACTION
As mentioned earlier, the Society recently conducted
an undercover investigation in Pakistan, some of the
photos from which appear on this page.
The Society is also funding undercover rescue
missions to raid slave factories to free child
slaves.
www.takcarpet.com
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