Indo-German Export Promotion Foundation response to Open Letter from HAQ: Centre for Child Rights and Samata
8 February 2010
Business & Human Rights Resource Centre invited the Indo-German Export Promotion Foundation to respond to the following item:
- Open letter to Indo-German Export Promotion Project from HAQ: Centre for Child Rights &
Samata, 19 Nov 2009
The open letter raises concerns about statements on child labour made by the Indo-German Export Promotion Project in this article:
- “Germany wants Indian exports free of child labour,” IANS, 12 Jan 2010
In response, Dr. Dietrich Kebschull, Chairman, IGEP Foundation, sent the following statement:
“I have some difficulties to understand the complaint madeby Haq: Centre for Child Rights and Samata. If you read diligently how I am quoted, you will agree that my statement is neither 'highly inaccurate' nor 'misleading'.
The German Minister referred to gravestones in Germany which come from India. These stonesare made from granite blocks, mainly in the federal states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.During the last two years we have inspectedmost of the quarries in these states related to the production of granite gravestones. We have also systematically checked the transport from the quarries to the factories, where the raw blocks are cut and gravestones are made. Wesupervised the packaging of the stones into containers for shipment and the sealing by the customs authorities. We do this regularly on behalf of German importers working together in the Interessengemeinschaft Natursteine e.V. and exporters organized in the Indian Monument Manufacturers Association.
Therefore we can say that till today we have not found one case of child labourin the granite gravestone trade; neither in the quarries nor in other parts of the value chain.
Theprocess of making gravestones from this materialis too difficult, too complex and too mechanized.
We do not deny that there could be child labour in the stone sector. But this would be in other fields than gravestones.
Our objective always has been to protect income and employment possibilitiesfor less privileged workers and their families. That is why we control and certify and try to avoidany form of exploitation.We do this systematically and with competence based on many years of experience. IGEP is accredited as an ISO certification organisation. We also established Rugmark in the carpet sector in 1994 and so helped to avoid a collapse of the Indian carpet industry. Till today 10 mill carpets have been labelled with the Rugmark label and many, many children have got better chances in lifeby providing them proper education and taking care for themeven after school time. We know what child labour is.Together with Rugmark we run six schools and a children home (Balashrya). In Delhi we have a school for slum children. Further schools are in preparation. We want that no child has to work and that all get better chances in life. Therefore we look for health care and training, too.
For abolishing child labourwe also promoted the system of social compliance and responsibility in other industries by comprehensively auditing and advising companies in sectors like handicrafts, leather, jewellery, textiles and garments, etc. All this has helped to considerably improve the situation of the lower groups in the society.This was possible not only because of our work, butto a large extent because of the intensive involvement of enterpreneurs from India and Germany, especially from small and medium sized companies. Theydemonstrated social responsibility!
Seeing this every day we are not willing to generally accuse and condemn entrepreneurs. Child labour must be eradicated. We have to find it - as we did in the production of carpetsand garments very often. And then we have toprovide help in a sustainable way, if possible together with exporters and importers. This we successfully do as you may see from the websites and
We are very interested in the study by Haq and Samata. If there is any child labour in connection with gravestones we will immediately do the necessary steps to stop that. And we will also try to fight child labour in other fields of the stone sector. But weareconvincedthat there is no child labour in the gravestone industry. Therefore I have said that accusations here are really exaggerated. And I stick to this statement!
If Haq and Samata have cases whichprove the contrary, please let me know them.”