The Rugmark label, which pictures a smiling
face on a carpet, has become the trademark for a promising initiative
to identify and promote hand-knotted carpets made without child labor.
The Rugmark Foundation, which was chartered in 1994 in India and
recently extended to Nepal, provides a voluntary certification program
for carpet exporters. Rugmark awards licenses to carpet exporters who
submit to a monitoring system that includes surprise inspections and
cross-checking of export records and looms.
One-fourth of the world’s child labor force is said to be located in
India, where an estimated 55 million children work in hazardous
industries that threaten their health, growth and life. One of these
industries is the hand-knotted carpet industry, in which an estimated
150,000 to 200,000 children work long hours with little to no pay and
receive one meal a day. India exports over $150 million worth of
hand-knotted carpets around the world. Its primary importers are
Germany and the United States, which together account for over
two-thirds of sales. The large growth in the carpet export industry
coupled by the cheaper wages of child labor have caused an increase in
the “employment” of children in carpet looms around the country.
Rugmark was founded by a group of Indian and international NGOs, the
Indo-German Export Promotion Program and UNICEF. In December 1995, its
board of directors decided on a three-step process of investigation.
The first is license approval after a series of inspections. The second
is random surprise inspections and the third is carpet tracking,
whereby each Rugmark carpet can be tracked by means of its maker,
location, and exporter.
Inspectors are hired and trained by the Rugmark Foundation. A number of
measures are taken to ensure that investigations are carried out
properly: Investigators work in pairs where partners are rotated; they
do not know which manufacturer they are seeing until the day of the
inspection; they are given competitive salaries to avoid bribes; and
supervisors have no direct attachment to any loom owners. The
inspectors either approve the manufacturers or, upon finding evidence
of child labor, give them a limited time to stop it. Not all carpets of
licensed looms automatically get Rugmark labels. Surprise
investigations ensure the continuation of compliance by the looms, and
only then will carpets made in that period be certified. The tracking
system gives a unique number to every carpet so that it can be tracked
from the importer to the manufacturer.
In the first 20 months of operation, Rugmark-India issued licenses to
more than 100 exporters operating 13,000 looms, while well over 270,000
carpets were certified, labeled and put on the market. Most of these
were exported to Germany, the world’s largest importer of oriental
carpets. Today approximately one-third of all carpets imported into
Germany from India are certified by Rugmark. Meanwhile, a growing
number of importers in other countries, including Canada, the
Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States, are asking suppliers
for Rugmark-labeled carpets.
In the first year, spot checks by independent Rugmark inspectors found
760 children working illegally on 408 looms licensed by Rugmark. As of
September 1996, 164 looms were decertified. The Indian government has
also set up an inspection and certification system for the carpet
industry known as Kaleen. Fifteen percent of carpet looms in India
either possess or have applied for Rugmark licenses. These, along with
the founding of Rugmark Nepal, are the first signs of success.
Children who are found to be illegally working during inspections are
rehabilitated and schooled by Rugmark. Upwards of 4,000 children in
India, Pakistan, and Nepal have been rehabilitated through such Rugmark
programs. In addition, thousands of other children have been prevented
from working at the carpet looms altogether just from the publicity
that is generated through the Rugmark programs. Rehabilitation programs
are currently at work in Pakistan, Nepal, and India, and marketing
programs are taking place in Germany, the United States, and the United
Kingdom.
Importers of Rugmark carpets agree to contribute one percent of the
market value of carpets imported towards schools and training programs.
The exporters also pay a fee of 0.25% of the carpet value, which goes
towards financing inspections.
Rugmark has faced some challenges in its efforts. Due to the widely
scattered location of looms in India, regular inspections are
difficult. The structure of the industry is not uniform. While some
exporters are closely connected to the looms, many employ
intermediaries, which makes it hard to enforce the tracking component
of the three-step certification process.
Labeling products to assure consumers child labor was not used
