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US to keep child labour tabs on more goods

The United States government proposes to extend ''consumer labelling,'' hitherto confined to hand-knotted carpets, to other such sectors to combat ''abusive'' child labour in India and elsewhere.

A report, released by Labour Secretary Alexis Herman, at a press conference in Washington on Thursday, described the programme as'' an effective, market-based response'' to consumers who opposed the exploitation of children in the production of goods for export.

It referred to nine labelling programmes in hand-knotted carpet, leather footwear, soccer ball, and tea industries. The product labels certify that goods were not made with exploitative child labour.

The report supports the needs for legislations like the one introduced by Senator Tom Harkin (Democrat) and Congressman George Miller which calls on manufacturers to voluntarily label their products with a ''No child labour'' guarantee to give consumers an educated choice when they make their purchases.

It encourages American companies to look at the use of consumer labels to indicate that a product is child labour free and encourages uniform labelling initiatives.

The report says child labour continues to be a problem in the hand-knotted carpet industries of India, Nepal and Pakistan. Children are involved in almost every aspect of carpet production, including dyeing, spinning and unravelling yarn and weaving knotting, cutting and washing carpets, it adds.

Nearly all hand-knotted carpets are made for export India, Pakistan and Nepal are among the leading carpet exporters. The US imported $329 million worth of carpets last year. India is the largest single source of US imports of carpets, followed by china.

On an average, India exports carpets worth $600 million a year, of which the US accounts for about $175 million.

The report lists five main child labour labelling programme for carpets. These are Rugmark, Kaleen, Steep, and Acre and Fair . Rugmark and Kaleen are product labels that are affixed to individual carpets. Steep and Care and Fair are company certification programmes.

According to the report, the principal objectives of the programme are to organise an independent, professional and internationally credible monitoring and certification system for carpet manufactured without child labour and rehabilitate and educate former child carpet workers.

Efforts are under way to establish Rugmark in Pakistan.

The Rugmark label, placed on the back of each carpet, displays a carpet with a smiling face.

As of June 1997, the Indian Rugmark Foundation had certified about 636,000 labelled carpets from 164 licensed producer/exporters and the Nepal programme had 27 licensees and exported about 6,500 certified carpets as of May 1997.

The report cites child labour in the leather footwear industries of India and Pakistan, where children are employed in cutting, hammering, folding, gluing, marking, hand sewing and sanding the soles of shoes. Children tend to work in home-based enterprises where the subcontracting of leather footwear is rather limited.

The use of child labour in the production of hand-stitched soccer balls has been documented primarily in India and Pakistan. In 1996, some 75 per cent of those imports came from Pakistan, where most balls are produced around the city of Sialkot (Punjab).

Adverse publicity in the US and Europe about child labour in soccer industry prompted some American importers to adopt labels informing consumers that their products have been produced in child labour free environment. In some cases, these programmes are accompanied by changes in production processes to prevent the employment of children, the report adds.

UNI