Farida’sresponse re concerns raised in Stop Child Labour report about its efforts to address child labour

22 Jan 2014

Business & Human Rights Resource Centre invitedFaridato respond to the following items:

-“Which companies are scoring against child labour?”, Stop Child Labour, 27 Nov 2013,

-“Working on the Right Shoes – Progress made in addressing child labour and other labour rights by 28 footwear companies since June 2012”, Stop Child Labour, November 2013,

Faridasent us the following response:

“Firstly we would like to thank you for giving us an opportunity to respond before publishing the report.

Sadly , HIVOS did not give us the same opportunity nor did they care to check the veracity of their investigation before publishing.

HIVOS had alleged in their report that Farida’s supply chain has links with Sub contractors who engage Child labour.

We strongly deny the allegations linking Farida with existence of “Child labour in the footwear industry”.

We have already responded to HIVOS’s report by categorically stating that we are confident of our systems and checks which are strong enough to prevent or identify any deviations to our policy on “No Child Labour”.

We explained to HIVOS that the allegations against us are incorrect and substantiated our stand based on Documents obtained from the Government authorities.

We have proved the inconsistency and incorrectness of the HIVOS’investigation by providing the below facts and proofs,

  • Miracle shoes which was reported as our sub contractor and found to have engaged child labour, was legally wound up from 30.10.2010 whereas the research was carried out in February 2012.We have obtained the documentary evidence from the Labour welfare department ,Government of Tamilnadu. Please refer Attachment 1 – Miracle Shoes Closure report and Translation.xlsx
  • Vaishnavi leathers which is our subcontractor and alleged to have engaged child labour had been subjected to 3rd party(TUV) social compliance audit by a brand thrice in the last 1 ½ years and found to comply with legal requirements with respect to prevention of child labour.
  • Bugatti and Bata were linked to Farida and to Child labour in the initial report(June 12) when the fact was that we did not work with Bugatti and Bata.Later in the report released in November 2012, Bugatti and Bata were delinked from the report – proving that the research was not based on credible information. Please referAttachment 2 Excerpts from the December 2012 report.pdf
  • Initial report (June 12) mentioned that about 200 subcontract factories supplied to Farida whereas the November 2012 report mentioned that about 100 subcontract factories supplied to Farida –proving again that the research was not based on credible information.In reality we had only 25 subcontract factories in November 2012 Please refer Attachment 3 Excerpts from HIVOS mail confirming incorrect information in First report

In addition to the above the credibility of the researcher as well as the report was exposed at the Stakeholder meeting held at Chennai,India on April ’24 2013 organised by BSCI and attended by various brands sourcing from the region, local footwear suppliers, international as well as local NGO’s and social compliance experts.

The presentation by [a representative] of HIVOS at the stakeholder meeting held at Chennai,India on April 24,2013, carried content that was questioned by the diverse participants for the veracity as well as relevance to the subject of Child labour in the footwear industry.Unfortunately [the HIVOS representative] had to accept that the presentation had mistakes.

The outcome of the stakeholder meeting was the realization of the need to have better information on the existence of child labour and the extent (if any) leading to BSCI initiating a project along with Center for responsible Business on the subject .

At the end of the Stakeholder meeting , HIVOS representative agreed to check all the inconsistencies and incorrect information with the researcher and delink Farida’s name from the report.

However HIVOS went back on the agreement and informed us in November’13 that they stand by their researchers version. They also referred to a “Senior trade union leader” as endorsing the researchers version of existence of Miracles shoes.

In view of HIVOS going back on its agreement, we had to petition the Government and obtain the Closure report of Miracle shoes in order to substantiate that the researcher was pursuing his own agenda of tarnishing the reputation of Farida in the process negating whatever good intentions HIVOS had in carrying out the research.

Inspite of submitting the Government closure report of Miracle shoes , HIVOS went ahead and released its report sticking to the reporters imaginary story.

HIVOS gave credibility to the “words of a manager “ and linked Bata and Bugatti to the allegation.HIVOS again gave credibility to the “words of a senior trade union leader from Ambur” and concluded that Miracle shoes is in operation. But HIVOS was not willing to give credibility to the Closure report issued by the labour department of the Government of Tamilnadu.

Farida being a socially responsible organization, has in place necessary systems and checks to comply with legal requirements on Prevention of child labour. See attachment 4.”