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In last Sunday’s Observer Magazine’s Special Issue on The Ethical Awards 2008 there was a revealing and well written article on Child Labour in the Egyptian cotton industry.There are an estimated 2.7 million children working in Egypt, the majority, up to 1 million young workers, are in working in agriculture.

According to the article, children in the cotton fields work up to 10-hour shifts in the 40 degree heat for 20 pence per day near the Fayoum Oasis, 90km south of Cairo. The youngest are just seven years old. The plants which they tend, searching for insects and pests which could destroy the harvest, are drenched in dangerous pesticides.

Egypt’s cotton exports are worth £150million per year. World cotton prices, however, have been falling over the past fifteen years, partly due to over-supply and partly due to subsides given to American farmers by the world’s largest cotton producer.

Egypt’s 1996 Child Law bans the employment of children under the age of 14, and regulates the hours and conditions of those between the age of 15 and 17. However child labour is rife, as many families live in poverty. According the UN 17% of Egypt’s 77.5 million people live below the poverty line.

Egyptian cotton is the most prestigious and luxurious type of cotton. Its long fine and elastic fibres make the softest sheets and towels. Marks and Spencer’s, John Lewis, Habitat, Ikea and Tesco now have Egyptian cotton ranges. The article relates how The Observer phoned companies sourcing cotton. Whilst they could provide answers on the factory conditions where their ranges were made, they were at a loss to communicate what they were doing to support change at the level of the cotton fields. Only M&S said they were working with the independent Better Cotton Initiative, which is working to set better social and environmental standards in the cotton industry.

Campaigners and the media are pushing retailers to investigate conditions further down the supply chain than the factory level. Commodity markets present a range of challenges to companies attempting to ensure better labour standards in their supply chains. Not least of which is the issue of transparency and traceability. Nevertheless the public expect companies to be finding solutions to these problems and working towards making a difference at this level.

This builds on the Environmental Justice Foundation‘s campaign on Uzbek cotton last year, which ultimately led to Tesco’s decision to pull out of sourcing any cotton from Uzbekistan.

There is a certain irony that the Guardian is currently advertising its own range of Egyptian cotton sheets!