US govt to probe into report on fair-trade cotton’s forced child labour

New York -  The U.S. government is investigating a report of forced child labour in a fair-trade cotton program that supplies clothing material for lingerie giant Victoria’s Secret.

An article in Bloomberg News on 15th December outlined what it described as forced child labour in an organic and fair-trade cotton program in Burkina Faso, Africa, which is a source of material for the major lingerie retailer.

A unit from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is conducting the federal government’s initial probe, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

The article detailed the travails of a 13-year-old foster child, Clarisse Kambire, who picks cotton in a West African field. The farmer she works for is one of the Burkina Faso program’s producers. Clarisse said the farmer beats her if she does not pick cotton quickly enough.

“I’m starting to think about how he will shout at me and beat me again,” the New York Daily News quoted Clarisse as saying.

Cotton from the harvest that was picked by Clarisse and other child workers went straight to factories in India and Sri Lanka. From there, fibres were used to create the underwear sold at Victoria’s Secret, items with tags that say, “Made with 20% organic fibers from Burkina Faso.”

The parent company of Victoria’s Secret, Ohio-based Limited Brands Inc., as well as Fairtrade International, the company responsible for certifying the Burkina Faso cotton, disputed parts of the story.

Limited Brands said that its research showed that Clarisse is an adult and picks vegetables, not cotton. However, the report reported that a birth certificate for Clarisse that Limited Brands used as evidence names Clarisse’s deceased older sister. When the woman passed away more than a decade ago, Clarisse adopted her name, her foster parents said.