Debt-bondage, adolescent girls and t-shirts.

Two years ago Verité conducted several workplace investigations in Tirupur City, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu in India. Tirupur bills itself as the ‘Manchester of South India’ in reference to its importance in Indian garment manufacturing.

Our investigation found one other thing that Tirupur shared with Manchester from industrial revolution days: a serious problem of child labor in t-shirt factories.

In general it is not surprising to find child labor in India. But the specifics of this particular manifestation are shocking, and they confirmed our recognition that the way in which workers are hired determines in many ways the conditions that they will face. In our several ‘social audits,’ as the assessments are called, we identified dozens of adolescent girls sewing t-shirts in factories that have contracted with US brands. They were between 12 – 17 years old, and all from home villages hundreds of miles from Tirupur itself. They had been brought from home on a three-year, fixed term contract, after which they would be paid a lump sum for their work, equivalent to about $750. In the meantime – that is in the years before their contracts end – they are essentially tied to their factory by the unpaid salary.

This so-called ‘Sumangali Scheme’ is well-known and widespread in the region. When we went back for a follow up visit several days later the girls were all gone – taken elsewhere by their ‘labor brokers’ when the factory owners were spooked by our investigations. Labor brokers find jobs for poor people, and in that way they grease the wheels of global commerce. Too often, though, they prey on the most vulnerable of job seekers, changing the terms of their employment or confiscating their passports so workers can’t run away. Brokers take often substantial and illegal fees to pay for their ‘services,’ money that workers have to borrow. The debt binds the workers to their broker and to their workplace. They can’t leave lest they lose their ability to pay back their loans.

Our Help Wanted report (available on www.verite.org/WellMade) outlines several other ways in which we found people in a condition of forced labor – effectively slaves –working to make goods that end up in western homes. When we presented this information to a room full of supporters – many of them hardened veterans of a decade in the CSR trenches – they expressed shock.

The solution?

• Collaborative effort among a group of companies to stamp out the Sumangali scheme that inflicts debt-bondage on young girls in Tirupur.
• Broad adoption of the audit tools and audit protocols that we will promulgate through our Help Wanted campaign.
• Focus on the problem of debt-bondage by investors who engage companies on social issues.
• Agreement and joint action by companies to demand changes in business practices by Tirupur factories and the local government authorities.

Young girls are sewing in Tirupur even today. They are vulnerable during the day from workplace dangers like chemicals and bleach; they are vulnerable at night from the risk of sexual abuse and even forced prostitution at the hands of their brokers. Please join us in focusing the private sector on the specific problem as we see it in Tirupur, and on the need to implement FAIR HIRING wherever brokers are used. Let us know your thoughts, and how you can help.