Indian apparel retailers upset with forced labour allegations

With H&M banning its suppliers from using yarns produced at a South Indian mill for employing children and making labourers, especially women and children work in precarious conditions, many Indian apparel retailers have expressed their displeasure. A report was released by two pressure groups on October 29, the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) and the India Committee of the Netherlands (ICN), after interviewing some 150 workers at five textile mills in Tamil Nadu.

As per the 'Flawed Fabrics' report, women and girls -some as young as 15 -belonging to marginalised Dalit communities in impoverished rural areas are recruited. They are forced to work long hours for low pay, and live in company-owned hostels and rarely allowed to step out. The report said that the five mills including Best Cotton Mills, Jeyavishnu Spintex, Premier Mills, Sulochana Cotton Spinning Mills and Super Spinning Mills supplying to western companies and Bangladeshi garment factories, with customers including C&A, Mothercare, HanesBrands, Sainsbury's and Primark, are a part of the group engaged into forced labour practises.

Popularly known as Sumangali scheme, a bonded labourer system, which was said to have been out of the industry after many global apparel companies importing from India took a stand against it, continues to thrive in several parts of the states including Erode, Tirupur, Coimbatore, Dindigul and Rajapalayam. Indian garment makers entered the notorious list of labour law violators in 2008 and since then, have been fighting hard to get their industry removed from the list. Earlier, after a study exposed bonded-labour practised in the South Indian states, major global retailers like Walmart, GAP, C&A, H&M, Primark, Mother and Tesco had warned their Indian suppliers against the same.