Child Labor for Fair-Trade Cotton Probed by U.S. Investigators
Child Labor for Fair-Trade Cotton Probed by U.S. Investigators
By Cam Simpson, Ekow Dontoh and Jeff Bliss - Jan 12, 2012 11:00 PM CT
U.S. investigators are conducting a preliminary inquiry into forced child labor used in an organic and fair-trade cotton program that supplies the American lingerie retailer Victoria’s Secret, a federal law enforcement official confirmed this week.
Victoria’s Secret’s parent company, Limited Brands Inc., said in an e-mailed statement yesterday that it continues “to take this matter very seriously as we do not tolerate child labor.” Those practices were disclosed in a Dec. 15 Bloomberg News report about the program the company buys from in Burkina Faso. Fairtrade International, the Bonn-based organization that certified the cotton, said in a statement last week that it has “prioritised further training on child labour and child protection for its members” beginning in early 2012.
At the same time, both Fairtrade and the company have disputed elements of the story. Bloomberg News stands by its reporting.
While Fairtrade quietly removed from its website several initial assertions about the report, the organization and Columbus, Ohio-based Limited Brands say their own inquiries show the girl at the center of the piece picks vegetables, not fair- trade cotton, and is an adult.
More:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-13/child-labor-for-fair-trade-cotton-probed-by-u-s-investigators.html
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