San Francisco Blog

Talk about GapKids. Apparently there really is a kid gap, into which little kids fall, get sold into bondage, and end up hand-sewing Gap Inc. clothes in the back streets of New Dehli, India "world capital for child labour." The Observer went undercover and found 10 to 12-year-olds slaving over Gap Inc. products for 16 hours a day, all bound for the Christmas rush in Europe and the United States. Doesn't the holiday season just bring out the best in everybody? Some highlights:

"The derelict industrial unit in which Amitosh and half a dozen other children are working is smeared in filth, the corridors flowing with excrement from a flooded toilet."

"'Last week, we spent four days working from dawn until about one o'clock in the morning the following day. I was so tired I felt sick,' he whispers, tears streaming down his face. 'If any of us cried we were hit with a rubber pipe. Some of the boys had oily cloths stuffed in our mouths as punishment.'"

Faced with these terrible allegations, San Francisco-based Gap Inc. has vowed to withdraw "tens of thousands" of garments identified in the Observer's investigation. Uh, duh. Of course, the irony runs so, so deep here. With the likes of Bono, Steven Spielberg, Madonna, and an almost endless list of other celebrities on board for last year's 'Product Red' campaign to fight AIDS in the Third World, Gap has poised itself, brand-wise, in the socially responsible category.

It should be noted that the slave masters in this case were merely subcontractors for the Gap Inc., who apparently had no idea that some of their clothes are actually made by kids, for kids. Read their statement.

-- Brian Bernbaum