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Nike has been accused of using child labor in the

production of its soccer balls in Pakistan. This case
study will examine the claims and describe the industry
and its impact on laborers and their working conditions.
While Pakistan has laws against child labor and slavery,
the government has taken very little action to combat it.
Only a boycott by the United States and other nations
will have any impact on slavery and child-based
industries. Futhermore the U.S constitution states that
child labor is an illegal and inhumane practice and any
U.S. company found guilty practicing and encouraging it
will be prosecuted.GATT and WTO prohibits member nations, like the United States, from
discriminating against the importation of goods made by children. Are dolphins becoming
more important than children? A question making WTO to reconsider the children's appeal of
the third world.



 


 

  

 
Pakistan has a per-capita income of $1,900 per
year -meaning that a typical person survives barely
on $5 per day. And that's nonot all, Pakistan has a
traditional culture where earning of one person goes
on feeding 10 mouths; and with the high rate of
inflation it becomes difficult for a low income
population to survive. Child labor is spread all over Pakistan but has the greatest impact in
the north-west of punjab province, that is Sialkot. Pakistan has a population of approximately
1 million and is an important centre for the production of goods for export to international
markets, particularly sporting goods. In 1994,
exports from Sialkot brought income of almost US$ 385 million into the Pakistan economy.
Sialkot is thus one of the world¶s most important centres for production of sporting goods.

Child labor exists in Sialkot both in the export sector and the domestic sector. This fact has
been well documented and reported by the international media for several years but nothing
has been done about it. In Pakistan it is clearly documented that child labor is against the law,
but the government carries lack of willingness to do anything about it. Provision for
education is very limited, due to the fact that very low priority is given to education in the
national budgets. Education receives around 3% of the total gross domestic product when
compared to over ten times of this amount spent on military. Gender and other forms of
discrmination plus adding to the lack of political will, gives the clear picture of the existence
of child labor in Pakistan.
Nike as a helper or exploiter to IIIrd World
Recently if you go to a shop to buy your child a new soccer ball. There is a good
possibility that the ball has been made by someone your child's age or even younger. About
half of the world's soccer ball are made in Pakistan, and each one of them passes through a
process of production where child labor is involved. This problem not only pertains to
Pakistan but is worldwide. More than 200 children, some as young as 4 and 5 years of age,
are involved in the production line. Majority of these children work in Asia, e.g in the nations
of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

Nike is characterized of making its equipments in countries which are in the developing
phase, having very cheap labor, authoritarian government and lack of human rights appeal
and union movement. In doing this it has made greater margins on the cost of mere cents to
its workers. So Nike success story is not based on good name and advertising alone but also
attached to it is the tears of tortured workers and child labor.

A columnist 'Stephen Chapman' from Libertarian newspaper argues that "h



 
 







   

  







  
 

  

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(source: http://www.raincity.com/~williamf/words96.html)
Stephen argues that the best way to end child-labor is to buy more of the products that
children produce. This would increase their demand, and as they will produce more, they will
earn more, hence giving themselves chane to rise above poverty level and thus also benefiting
the families of the children and as well as the nation.

However, the issue is not that simple. Increasing the demand of the products produced by
child labor means encouraging more child labor, encouraging more birth rates, more slavery,
increasing sweatshops and discouraging education - as parents of the children working in
factories would want them to work more and earn more. If this happened to be the case, then
more and more children will be bought and sold on the black market, leading no end to this
problem. By encouraging more child labor, you are not only taking away those innocent years
from them but also the right to be educated and the right to be free.

Nike - a good chess player

As a good chess player Nike always thinks ahead of its movement. It does not launch its
production directly in to the developing country, such as Pakistan, but instead it subcontracts
it to them by selecting a local firm. When doing this, the local firm, in this case SAGA
sports, has to abide by the Nike's international rules and regulations when producing its
goods. And it is the duty of the international firm (NIKE) to monitor its subcontracted
production units and hold it to tight scrutuny. But this is not what really happens. Both Nike
and the local production company aims to minimize cost and earn the highest amounts of
profit thus involving themselves in illegal practices, such as child labor, a practice which is
not so highlighted by the government of the host developing country. So what happens when
you question Nike about its labor practices? An answer comes that it is not they who are
involved in this illegal labor practices but it is the local subcontracter who is doing so. This
is wrong to say as Nike and SAGA sports both benefits with access to cheap child labor in
Pakistan. And if Nike cannot control its subcontracted plants, it means they have not
implemented their rules and regulations effectively and is not abiding by the international
standards which they have set for themselves.

Nike's entrance in to the Pakistani markets was the part of its long term strategic planning.
It is false to explain that Nike didn't knew that child labor is an ages-old practice in Pakistan.
Nike went into Pakistan, having full knowledge of the favorable conditions prevailing in
terms of child labor and has taken no precautions whatsoever to prevent the use of child labor
in the production of its soccer balls. Instead Nike has made a profit from its Pakistani
contractors who inturn has used bonded child labor in the production process. Critically
analyzing the situation, "Why Nike always land up in places having cheap or bonded labors
or in places where it can easily get away with illegal labor practices?" Examples incude:
Vietnam, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. Nike simply bases its operations
on finding the lowest-cost labor to make its products.Twelve-year-old girls work in
Indonesian sweatshops 70 hours a week making Nike shoes in unhealthy plants.

According to a Foulball campaign report, Nike has refused twice to have a check in their
Saga-managed center in Pakistan while on the other hand Nike's rival Reebok readily granted
access to its Moltex-managed center in Pakistan.

Nike has the habit of hiding behind its good public image and its effective means of
promotions and advertising. Nike attempts to create a good public image by offering charity,
donating equipments and never passing an opportunity to remind the public that it has set up
stitching centers in places such as Sialkot, Pakistan.

How it all started - Consumer awareness 1996

When the June, 1996 issue of Life magazine carried an article about child labor in
Pakistan, Nike knew that it was
in trouble. The article's lead photograph showed 12-year-old Tariq surrounded by the pieces
of a Nike soccer ball
which he would spend most of a day stitching together for the grand sum of 60 cents. In a
matter of weeks, activists all across
Canada and the United States were standing in front of Nike outlets, holding up Tariq's photo.

And yet, Nike has not done an especially good job of scrutinizing the subcontractors with
which it's working. Nor has it been open about its labor practices in the way public
companies should be expected to be. Cameramen have been pushed out of factory floors.
Supervisors at a plant in Vietnam apparently beat workers being paid 20 cents an hour and
refused to allow them to leave their work posts. Indonesian labor organizers has been put
behind bars. And, most troubling, nearly all the soccer balls made in Pakistan have been
revealed to be made by young children getting paid just cents a day.

Nike chairman Phil Knight also acknowledged that a shipment of soccer balls Nike
purchased in Pakistan in the year 1996 was made by a subcontractor using child labor in
"horrible conditions." Although 1996 was the first year in which real public attention was
focused on Nike's labor practices abroad, it's important to recognize that manufacturing shoes
in low-wage countries was, from the start, a crucial part of Phil Knight's plan for his
company. In other words, American jobs have not been shipped abroad. On the contrary,
Nike has never made shoes in the United States. Its first factories, built in the 1960s, were in
Japan, when that country was still a part of the Third World. And since thirty years Nike have
migrating from nation to nation, arriving as countries install the necessary mechanisms for
orderly business operations and leaving as living standards become too high to make
manufacturing profitable.

Nike "not  but  

 ."
This is the first time that Nike has had to face real questions about its labor practices
abroad, the first time that it has felt a public-relations impact. At this point, that impact does
not seem at all devastating. While in the short run Americans are generally horrified by the
issue of child labor and has expressed concern over the working conditions in foreign
factories, Nike should take immediate actions in order to provide remedy to all the activism it
faces, otherwise it can prove devastating for the company's image in the long run. The basic
truth about Nike is that its only real strength is its good name. Nike rules because of all the
good things people associate with the company: sharp ads, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods,
little Penny, and Michael Jordan again. If "beaten workers" and "child labor" get added to
that list, then Nike's greatest asset will be lost.

Now the burden is on the company both to do a better job of implementing company-wide
global standards of conduct and also to improve its openness to the media. The more you
hide, after all, the more people think you have something to hide. Every hand that goes up,
hurts Nike in the public eye. And when you're a consumer company, that's the only eye that
matters.

Consumers -- "×
."

When a person states that he/she is working for Nike, it gives a very good status symbol.
But what if the person is a 9 - year old child? What image will it give you as a consumer
when you buy ththose products or brands that employ child labor?

Consumers should take an immediate action in order to eradicate child labor practices
discharged by these multinational U.S corporations. This can only be done by not buying
their products which are produced in the third world and which have suspicion of a child
being involved in the process. Child labor is a human rights issue. What is more of a human
right than growing up as a free person, attending school without being held in bondage?

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The world famous Apple computer corporation is admitting to the

use of child labor in some Chinese factories.

The underage workers were either fired, or are now working having become of age and thus
eligible for employment.

Apple refused to release the names of the offending factories, or even to list their locations.

Apple has a history of labor practices that are often under fire and complaint from human
watch groups. Recently, 62 employees at a factory that Apple contracts from
became poisoned with n-hexane. Apple has yet to comment on the incident.

These most recent admissions will hardly clear Apple¶s slate in the public eye. Nearly all
Apple products are labeled ³Designed by Apple in California Assembled in China.´ The
more news that comes out on its labor practices, the worse off Apple appears.

We all of course recall the incident last year concerning the suicide of a Foxconn employee
after he was accused to have stolen an iPhone prototype. Foxconn is one the largest and most
critical Apple suppliers. The death was swirled in intrigue and speculation.

Foxconn is something of a problem for Apple. Long has Foxconn forced workers to not only
break China¶s labor laws, but also Apple¶s. China has rules stating that workers cannot labor
more than 49 hours a week. Apple has a rule saying that 60 is the limit. Foxconn often works
their employees even harder.

Apple still contracts heavily with Foxconn.

According to the Telegraph, many Apple contracted Chinese factories routinely cheat their
workers, but yet still have Apple contracts:

Only 65 per cent of the factories were paying their staff the correct wages and benefits, and
Apple found 24 factories where workers had not even been paid China¶s minimum wage of
around 800 yuan (Pounds76) a month.

Meanwhile, only 61 per cent of Apple¶s suppliers were following regulations to prevent
injuries in the workplace and a mere 57 per cent had the correct environmental permits to
operate.
Apple has a wonderful reputation in the technology world, and it has tens of billions of
dollars in the bank. You would think that they could end the abuse of the workers who are the
source of their wealth.


   
 

An Observer investigation into children making clothes has shocked the retail giant and may
cause it to withdraw apparel ordered for Christmas

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Amitosh concentrates as he pulls the loops of thread through tiny plastic beads and sequins
on the toddler's blouse he is making. Dripping with sweat, his hair is thinly coated in dust. In
Hindi his name means 'happiness'. The hand-embroidered garment on which his tiny needle is
working bears the distinctive logo of international fashion chain Gap. Amitosh is 10.

The hardships that blight his young life, exposed by an undercover Observer investigation in
the back streets of New Delhi, reveal a tragic consequence of the West's demand for cheap
clothing. It exposes how, despite Gap's rigorous social audit systems launched in 2004 to
weed out child labour in its production processes, the system is being abused by unscrupulous
subcontractors. The result is that children, in this case working in conditions close to slavery,
appear to still be making some of its clothes.

Gap's own policy is that if it discovers children being used by contractors to make its clothes
that contractor must remove the child from the workplace, provide it with access to schooling
and a wage, and guarantee the opportunity of work on reaching a legal working age.

It is a policy to stop the abuse of children. And in Amitosh's case it appears not to have
succeeded. Sold into bonded labour by his family this summer, Amitosh works 16 hours a
day hand-sewing clothing. Beside him on a wooden stool are his only belongings: a tattered
comic, a penknife, a plastic comb and a torn blanket with an elephant motif.

'I was bought from my parents' village in [the northern state of] Bihar and taken to New Delhi
by train,' he says. '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.
The journey took 30 hours and we weren't fed. I've been told I have to work off the fee the
owner paid for me so I can go home, but I am working for free. I am a shaagird [a pupil]. The
supervisor has told me because I am learning I don't get paid. It has been like this for four
months.'

The derelict industrial unit in which Amitosh and half a dozen other children are working is
smeared in filth, the corridors flowing with excrement from a flooded toilet.

Behind the youngsters huge piles of garments labelled Gap - complete with serial numbers
for a new line that Gap concedes it has ordered for sale later in the year - lie completed in
polythene sacks, with official packaging labels, all for export to Europe and the United States
in time for Christmas.

Jivaj, who is from West Bengal and looks around 12, told The Observer that some of the boys
in the sweatshop had been badly beaten. 'Our hours are hard and violence is used against us if
we don't work hard enough. This is a big order for abroad, they keep telling us that.

'Last week, we spent four days working from dawn until about one o'clock in the morning the
following day. I was so tired I felt sick,' he whispers, tears streaming down his face. 'If any of
us cried we were hit with a rubber pipe. Some of the boys had oily cloths stuffed in our
mouths as punishment.'

Manik, who is also working for free, claims - unconvincingly - to be 13. 'I want to work here.
I have somewhere to sleep,' he says looking furtively behind him. 'The boss tells me I am
learning. It is my duty to stay here. I'm learning to be a man and work. Eventually, I will
make money and buy a house for my mother.'

The discovery of the sweatshop has the potential to cause major embarrassment for Gap. Last
week, a spokesman admitted that children appeared to have been caught up in the production
process and rather than risk selling garments made by children it vowed it would withdraw
tens of thousands of items identified by The Observer.

He said: 'At Gap, we firmly believe that under no circumstances is it acceptable for children
to produce or work on garments. These allegations are deeply upsetting and we take this
situation very seriously. All of our suppliers and their sub-contractors are required to
guarantee that they will not use child labour to produce garments.

'It is clear that one of our vendors violated this agreement, and a full investigation is under
way. After learning of this situation, we immediately took steps to stop this work order and to
prevent the product from ever being sold in our stores. We are also convening a meeting of
our suppliers where we will reinforce our prohibition on child labour.
'Gap Incorporated has a rigorous factory-monitoring programme in place and last year we
revoked our approval of 23 factories for failing to comply with our standards.

'We are proud of this programme and we will continue to work with government, trade
unions and other independent organisations to put an end to the use of child labour.'

In recent years Gap has made efforts to rebrand itself as a leader in ethical and socially
responsible manufacturing, after previously being criticised for practices including the use of
child labour.

With annual revenues of more than £8bn and endorsements from Madonna and Sex and The
City star Sarah Jessica Parker, Gap has arguably become the most successful brand in high-
street fashion. The latest face of the firm's advertising is the singer Joss Stone.

Founded in San Francisco in 1969 by Donald Fisher, now one of America's wealthiest
businessmen, Gap operates more than 3,000 stores and franchises across the world. In Britain
Gap, babyGap and GapKids are very successful, their own-brand jeans alone outselling their
retail rivals' lines by three to one.

Last year, the company embarked on a huge advertising campaign surrounding 'Product Red',
a charitable trust for Africa founded by the U2 singer Bono and backed by celebrities
including Hollywood star Don Cheadle, singers Lenny Kravitz and Mary J Blige, Steven
Spielberg and Penelope Cruz. As part of the fundraising endeavour, Gap launched a new,
limited collection of clothing and accessories for men and women with Product Red
branding, the profits from which are being channelled towards fighting Aids in the Third
World.

On its website the company states that all individuals who work in garment factories deserve
to be treated with dignity and are entitled to safe and fair working conditions and not since
2000, when a BBC Panorama investigation exposed the firm's working practices in
Cambodia, have children been associated with the production of their brand.

Gap has huge contracts in India, which boasts one of the world's fastest-growing economies.
But over the past decade, India has also become the world capital for child labour. According
to the UN, child labour contributes an estimated 20 per cent of India's gross national product
with 55 million children aged from five to 14 employed across the business and domestic
sectors.

'Gap may be one of the best-known fashion brands with a public commitment to social
responsibility, but the employment [by subcontractors ultimately supplying major
international retail chains] of bonded child slaves as young as 10 in India's illegal sweatshops
tells a different story,' says Bhuwan Ribhu, a Delhi lawyer and activist for the Global March
Against Child Labour.

'The reality is that most major retail firms are in the same game, cutting costs and not
considering the consequences. They should know by now what outsourcing to India means.

'It is an impossible task to track down all of these terrible sweatshops, particularly in the
garment industry when you need little more than a basement or an attic crammed with small
children to make a healthy profit.
'Some owners even hide the children in sacks and in carefully concealed mezzanine floors
designed to dodge such raids,' he explains.

'Employing cheap labour without proper auditing and investigation of your contractor
inevitably means children will be used somewhere along the chain. This may not be what
they want to hear as they pull off fresh clothes from clean racks in stores but shoppers in the
West should be thinking "Why am I only paying £30 for a hand-embroidered top. Who made
it for such little cost? Is this top stained with a child's sweat?" That's what they need to ask
themselves.'