‘Ethical’ Cotton Is Being Picked by Child Labourers in India, Watchdog Finds

Pratibha Syntex claims to be India’s largest sustainable apparel manufacturer. It works with thousands of farmers growing cotton promoted under organic and ethical standards. Its customers include some of the world’s largest brands like Zara-owner Inditex, H&M Group, Gap Inc. and Amazon.

But on some of those farms, the fields are worked by children as young as six, sometimes pressed into labour because of debts taken on by their parents, according to an investigation published Tuesday by Transparentem, a nonprofit that works to uncover and reform abuses in global supply chains.

The investigation found some farms that supplied the company’s organic cotton programme were also using synthetic pesticides that aren’t permitted under local and international organic certifications. Children interviewed by Transparentem said they’d been put to work spraying the toxic chemicals. On one farm, a 13-year-old said the itching she experienced after exposure was so bad her father had to take her to the hospital. On another, the mother of an 11-year-old said her daughter sometimes vomited from the fumes.

The findings were based on months of interviews with more than 200 farm workers and owners in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, a major growing region in the world’s second-largest cotton producer. Transparentem also reviewed company and shipping documents to connect the growers to Prathibha Syntex and two other large apparel producers, Remei Group and Maral Overseas — and through them to the supply chains of 60 major Western brands.

The report paints a stark picture of large fashion companies’ efforts to clean up their supply chains. Many brands have taken steps to overhaul their cotton sourcing strategies over the last few years, largely in response to a US ban on products that could be linked to alleged human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region — claims denied by the Chinese government. But researchers have found large volumes are still leaking into fashion’s supply chains.

Other cotton-growing hubs, including India, have received less attention. Transparentem first alerted brands and suppliers to the findings of their investigation over a year ago.

All three suppliers named in the report told BoF there was no evidence to connect them to the findings and that they were committed to operating responsibly. Transparentem said it did not disclose all of the information it gathered, including names of farms and workers, for confidentiality reasons. In a statement to BoF, Remei criticised Transparentem’s lack of transparency and said as a result it could not assess and respond to the allegations against it. Remei has commissioned its own study — expected to complete next month — to assess labour conditions at farms that supply the company.

“We cannot understand the NGO’s approach,” Remei said. “What is certain for us, however, is that no positive impact can be achieved in this way.”

Meanwhile, many of the brands covered by the investigation have agreed to work to improve conditions in the region. Inditex, Amazon and H&M (which no longer sources from Pratibha Syntex) said they are committed to sourcing cotton responsibly and pointed to long-standing efforts to address risks of child labour in their supply chains. Gap did not respond to a request for comment.

All four companies are also part of a group working with human rights organisation the Fair Labour Association to develop better monitoring practices and protections in 32 villages in Madhya Pradesh in response to Transparentem’s findings. Pratibha Syntex and Maral Overseas are also participating in the programme.

Transparentum said the FLA programme looks promising, while adding that its scope is limited to a narrow area and a handful of companies, while the problem is systemic.

“[This is the] result of the entire structure of the apparel sector,” said Karen Stauss, Transparentem’s director of strategic engagement. “That’s not one company’s responsibility, but then it becomes no one’s responsibility.”

Failed Standards

Abuses occurring in India’s cotton fields are well documented. The country’s agricultural sector relies on a population of labourers, often from historically vulnerable low caste or migrant communities, working for next to nothing. India’s cotton is ranked on the US Labour Department’s list of goods at risk of being produced with child labour. The State Department has warned of issues of bonded labour on farms producing the crop in the country.

“These are problems the companies had every possibility to know about. They would have to be in some sense turning a blind eye to be unaware of the problems,” said Stauss. “That means that their system isn’t robust enough.”

Out of the 90 farms covered by the investigation, Transparentem found evidence of child labour on nearly half. The issues are endemic and likely affect many other companies, it said.

Most workers interviewed by Transparentem said they received just a couple of dollars a day in wages, reporting rates below the state’s legal minimum wage at the time of the investigation. Some said they’d taken out loans that could only be paid off through wage deductions or working on a lender’s farm. They reported debt levels ranging from 10,000 rupees ($121) to 200,000 rupees, far beyond what labourers could reasonably hope to work off on their slight salaries. In several cases, children were found to be working to help pay off family debts.

“What we found were children and families stuck in generational cycles of debt bondage,” said Transparentem founder and president Ben Skinner.

Policing and preventing such problems in the cotton supply chain is notoriously difficult. India’s cotton sector is made up of millions of smallholder farmers and most brands have little visibility over where their raw materials come from. Suppliers typically aren’t much better informed, sourcing through networks of intermediaries, rather than directly from farmers. Most companies rely on certification schemes and third-party auditing systems that have themselves been heavily criticised for repeatedly failing to catch or prevent labour abuses. Without real visibility over the farms supplying the cotton, any claims to be sourcing responsibly are effectively meaningless, said Skinner.

Even for suppliers with direct links to growers and best practices in place, effectively monitoring thousands of smallholder farms is a fiendish challenge.

Swiss yarn and textile trading company Remei Group runs an organic farming business in Madhya Pradesh, a pillar of its promise to provide sustainable products to its customers, including brands like Mammut and supermarket chain Coop.

It works directly with around 3,000 smallholder farmers in the central Indian cotton-producing region, offering a purchase guarantee for their raw material and a 15 percent premium above the local market price, hallmarks of responsible sourcing practices. It carefully monitors working conditions and provides training and support to address human rights risks.

Transparentem’s investigation found evidence of child labour on 13 out of 30 farms connected to the company’s supply chain, though that’s a smaller proportion than on the farms linked to the other suppliers covered.

Remei said its own ongoing study has so far encountered no children working on farms it contracts with. The company said it has been successfully working to tackle the systemic challenges highlighted by the investigation for decades through its direct trading relationship with farmers, engagement with local organisations and investment in on-the-ground infrastructure.

“[The human rights risks are] no news, but it is the reason why Remei and our business model exist,” the company said in an email.

Pilot Solutions, Systemic Problems

The FLA’s initiative in Madhya Pradesh kicked off in November, with support from more than 20 brands.

The three-year programme will cover 32 cotton-growing villages in two districts of the state, an area that produces a volume of cotton equivalent to the amount purchased from the region by the two suppliers participating in the project.

It’s based on a model the organisation has deployed with some success in Turkey, combining efforts to establish more robust human rights monitoring processes with community-level development initiatives and engagement with local partners. It launched a similar project in Egypt in May to address concerns about child labour in the jasmine sector, which supplies ingredients to major western perfume brands.

In Madhya Pradesh, the programme’s initial priorities will include enhancing measures to protect children, improving health and safety standards, promoting fair wages and responsible recruitment, developing independent complaints channels and supporting access to existing social schemes, the FLA said. By the end of its three-year run, local partners are expected to be in a position to take over, laying the foundations for long-term, lasting improvements, according to the FLA.

Though Transparentem would like to see work move more swiftly and more transparency around financing, it said the programme appears well constructed, as far as it goes. The FLA, too, said it would welcome more brands and suppliers joining the project to expand its scale and pace.

“There’s hundreds of other villages in which, at this point, there’s no plan to address the issues,” said Stauss. “There’s nothing going on right now that ultimately would allow a consumer to buy apparel that was sourced from India and feel comfortable there’s a big picture plan in place to solve these problems.”