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1 July 1998
The Brussels-based International Textile,
Garment and Leather Workers' Federation (ITGLWF) has called on
Adidas, supplier of footballs to the World Cup, to take immediate
measures to ensure that the contractors who produce their goods
in China don't use forced labour, either directly or indirectly.
The call follows recent allegations by four
former Chinese labour camp inmates that they were forced to make
World Cup footballs for Adidas. The four, who were imprisoned
in the Dafeng camp in eastern Jiangsu province, said they were
forced by prison guards to produce more than five footballs a
day.
ITGLWF General Secretary Neil Kearney expressed
concern at the revelations. In a letter to Adidas CEO Robert Louis-Dreyfus,
he asked the German sportsgoods company to investigate the allegations
and if they were found to be true immediately to cease sourcing
all footballs from China.
An estimated eight million people are currently
producing goods for export from inside China's gulags, the Laogai
("Reform through Work"). A wide range of different products
are made in the Laogai and exported to international markets.
Any private Chinese company can then be used as a front for the
export of these goods, which can be exported without any trace
of where they came from.
ADIDAS APPLAUDED FOR QUITTING CHINA
3 July 1998
Adidas' decision to cancel all orders for
footballs made in China after a report linked production with
prison labour was today applauded by the Brussels-based International
Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Federation whose member-unions
represent those employed in the production of footballs.
ITGLWF General Secretary, Neil Kearney said
today: "Adidas were clearly misled by their Chinese suppliers.
Their decision to cancel all orders and to cease using China is
the only sensible way to avoid further embarrassment. Every company
sourcing sports goods in China should seriously re-examine their
contracts to ensure that prison labour is not being used in the
production process."
Continued Kearney: "The Chinese have
again shown that they are not reliable business partners. Nor
will they be reliable until the authorities cease detaining their
citizens for alleged political misthinking and subjecting them
to the notorious "re-education through labour" process."
"The embarrassment caused to Adidas in
the past few days should be a lesson for every multinational retailer
or merchandiser sourcing goods in China", concluded Kearney.
For more information, contact:
Neil Kearney: 32/2/512.26.06 (office) or 32/2/75932487
(GSN)
CHINESE DISSIDENTS SUE ADIDAS, URGE BOYCOTT
WASHINGTON, July 2 (Reuters) - Exiled Chinese
dissident Bao Ge said on Thursday he was filing a class action
suit against the U.S. subsidiary of Adidas-Salomon AG accusing
the company of using prison labour to make soccer balls in China.
Adidas on Wednesday said it had stopped orders
for soccer balls made in China while it investigated the allegations,
first raised last month by Bao who said he personally manufactured
soccer balls for the World Cup while in prison.
China on Thursday denied prison labour was
used to manufacture soccer balls for the Adidas sports label.
But Bao, a founding member of the Voice of
Human Rights in China who spent three years in a forced labour
camp, and another former political prisoner, Yang Qinheng, are
proceeding with a civil lawsuit seeking damages for pain and suffering
during the 15-hour days they were forced to work seven days a
week.
"Adidas knowingly used forced labour
at the expense of the health and freedom of these Chinese citizens,"
said Joel Segal, an attorney with the Free China Movement which
announced the lawsuit on Thursday.
Segal said the group was also launching a
boycott of all companies like Adidas that "use slave labour
to make their products and sell them here."
The U.S. State Department estimated in a January
report that 6 to 8 million Chinese were working in forced labour
camps, and in a 1997 report cited "widespread human rights
abuses" including torture, forced confessions and arbitrary
arrests.
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