A decade ago the shoe giant was slammed as a sweatshop operator. Today it's taking responsibility to heart. Will it work?

Posing as a fashion buyer, an Australian TV reporter gained entry to a Malaysian T-shirt factory, where foreign migrant workers told a grim tale. They had been forced to surrender their passports while their wages were being garnished to pay off hefty recruiting fees. Worse still, they were living in crowded, filthy rooms.

International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) issued a report on ‘Child Labor’ in Uzbekistan. This report is based on information gathered by human rights defenders within Uzbekistan in September/October 2008. Contrary to the government of Uzbekistan’s assertions that it has banned forced child labor, recent information suggests it continues to compel children as young as 11 and 12 to pick cotton, closing schools and using other coercive measures to enforce compliance.

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With the Rotary Rose Sale last month and the holidays coming up soon, our community is likely to purchase thousands of dozens of roses this year. Careful consumer purchases can assure that the flower workers in Colombia will benefit as well.

The international flower industry has a history of labor exploitation and environmental degradation.

The Rotary Rose Sale committee took an important step by selling certified flowers, indicated by the statement on their poster that the “roses are grown in a socially and responsible way.” 

By Tara Parker-Pope

...“Chocolate connects the millions of Americans who eat it daily to the growers around the world who depend on cocoa for their livelihoods,” said Adrienne Fitch-Frankel, Global Exchange’s fair trade campaign director, in a press release. “It is unthinkable that our children are eating chocolate made with illegal child labor or slave labor, especially when a viable solution, Fair Trade Certified chocolate, exists right now.”