Foreign Aid & Civil Society

What Price for Saving India’s ‘Sweatshop children’?

The Telegraph reported yesterday that police in Delhi had closed a sweatshop factory at the “centre of a scandal involving US clothing giant Gap.” This followed a story and a sting operation by a media outlet showing the factory illegally employed children (Gap had subcontracted work from this factory). The international NGO “Global March Against Child Labour,” and its representative Mr. Ribhu commented on their achievement:

“First the children will be given something to eat and then we’ll try and make them comfortable for the night. Then the process of getting them financial compensation and returning them to their villages and families will begin,” Mr Ribhu said.

And then what?

What price must these children bear for living up to Mr. Ribhu and his paymaster’s values? What happens to them after they have been fed for a few nights? What are they going home to? After all, if their parents really wanted them home, the children would be home. So, are the children being rescued? Or condemned?

The word “rescue” brings a very recent and scary scenario to mind - of 103 children being “rescued” from Chad by the French NGO Zoe’s Ark for adoption in Europe. It would appear the line between rescue, abduction, and condemnation is fine indeed.

The proverbial road to hell is paved with good intentions. Unfortunately, in Chad - and possibly in Delhi - it is the children that may end up in hell. And all because of someone else’s good intentions. What is terrible about this situation is not that the children were “saved.” It is that those that did the “saving” gave no thought to what they were saving the children from, and what they were sending them to.

© 2007 The Discomfort Zone.