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We are in eager anticipation of what will be said by the Gap in their presentation at the Ethical Supply Chain Summit in Amsterdam tomorrow, following the allegations in The Observer and on The BBC News today.A double page spread in The Observer and exclusive video footage on the BBC detailed the use of children in an Indian sub-contracting unit that was embroidering girls’ tops for Gap. The focus of the reporting is a boy, named Amitosh, who is said to be 10 years old and referred to as ‘little one’ by his supervisor.

The report relates that because he is “an apprentice”, he is not paid. The conditions in which he works, and lives, are described as “smeared in filth” and “flowing with excrement”. Gap said they were unaware of the occurrence of outsourcing and the unit was not declared to them. However they have announced they are investigating the situation.

This illustrates a growing concern in the labour standards debate that the use of undeclared sub-contracting units is occurring under the radar of retailers. Gap is often viewed as a leading retailer on labour standards, and has done groundbreaking work on monitoring, remediation and purchasing practices. Their policy on child labour states: “If it is discovered children are being used by contractors, that contractor must remove the child from the workplace, provide it with access to schooling and a wage, and guarantee the opportunity of work on reaching a legal working age.” This is best practice when dealing with child labour.

The problem is that subcontracting is endemic in the Delhi garment industry. It is normal practice for registered factories to put out elements of production (embroidery, beading, embellishments and sometimes whole garments) to sub-contractors who run small domestic units, where conditions are always lower than in a registered factory and can sometimes be appalling. Other work goes out through a network of runners to individual homeworkers who are highly skilled at beading or embroidery.

One way of looking at this is to say that it pushes some of the income generated from global trade to desperately poor people who, being outside the formal economy, would normally not receive any of this money. Another way of looking at it is to say that it is a way of making more money by giving the work to people who are not protected by minimum wage or minimum age legislation and who have no job security. The challenge for Gap and others working in the field is to find a way to spread the income from global trade to poor people whilst also protecting their rights and improving their access to legal protection.

We hope that Gap will take up this challenge.

Watch this space to hear what the reaction is, first hand!