Thursday, August 25, 2011


Blacklisting of Indian Garment Exporters for using Child Labour 
 
Indian garments have been listed by the United States Department of Labor in the year 2009 and 2010 in their final determination of the Executive Order list No. 13126 and Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) list, on grounds that the list of products might have been produced or manufactured by forced or indentured child labour.

As per United States Department of Labor the TVPRA and EO lists are awareness generation list and do not act as Non Tariff Barriers. The impact of these finding has not been witnessed in apparel exports to other exporting countries.

Government has engaged the US authorities through several meetings since 2009, with a view to get Indian garments off the US DoL lists. US DoL has also been furnished with the industry response to the final determination based on field level surveys. Meanwhile, the Apparel Exports Promotion Council (AEPC) has also commenced with implementing the Common Compliance Code, a Plan Scheme of Ministry of Textiles, for sensitizing the domestic industry on appropriate labour practices.

This was stated by Smt. Panabakka Lakshmi, Minister of State in the Ministry of Textiles in written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today.

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