The history of the rugs probably comes across as a bland topic, but you may want to look more closely at the origins of such carpets the next time you venture out to the store. If that rug is from India, there’s a high likelihood that it was made by child slaves. Forced labor in the 21st century? Most argue that this is incredulous– India banned child labor in 1986. Well, India is evidently living in the past, because exploitation in the carpet industry has been established as a certainty and could be responsible for that carpet in your living room.

The Issue

In August of 2010, a CNN article was released detailing the corruption in the Northern India carpet belt, drawing attention to how illegal child labor practices were an integral routine in the export of these handmade rugs to Europe and the United States. The government of India event went so far as to state that child labor no longer existed in the country’s hand-woven carpet sector, and society turned a blind eye to what was believed to be a nonexistent problem. Yet, here we are four years later, and the youth-labor monstrosity still persists.

Back in January of this year, Harvard’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, Siddharth Kara, revealed that an alarming number of carpets sold in the US are still woven by exploited workers in India, and the atrocities have only gotten worse.  Major U.S. retailers imported handmade carpets from India worth $306 million in 2012. In the United States, these laborers would be given at least the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. In India? Try $0.21. Adults are essentially victims of penny-wage slavery, and children earn less than half of this.

Impact

Children and adults involved in this carpet corruption clearly receive abysmal wages, but this is the least of their problems. Carpet weavers, especially children, face numerous health ailments as a result of hazardous working conditions, particularly in situations of severe labor exploitation. Forced laborers and those in similar conditions are often coerced to work twelve or more hours a day, allowed to eat only two meals a day, live and sleep in the same place as they work, suffer beatings and abuse, and are frequently injured in the weaving process. Common ailments for these workers include:

Moving Forward