The Indian factory accused of being a child labour sweatshop for retail giant Gap Inc. is still in production.

Ten-year-old Sheikh Ali is being taken out of the sweatshop by the rescuers.
(Rohit Gandhi/CBC)

Following reports that the factory in Shahpur Jat was using child labour to produce garments for Gap's children's line, New Delhi police have conducted two raids on the factory.

Officers first descended on the factory Monday afternoon, finding 14 children in a single workshop. Children's aid workers and journalists accompanied the police. On Tuesday, another 28 children were rounded up.

Reporters were told by factory managers to leave the premises, but not before recording images of barefoot, shirtless boys at work. Ten-year-old Sheikh Ali said he had been in training, without pay, for the last three months.

"I work from 9 a.m. till about 8 p.m. in the evening," said another boy, who would only give the name Rahman.

The raids came a day after the British newspaper, The Observer, published stories about children working in medieval conditions at the south New Delhi plant.

The Observer said children were forced to work as many as 16 hours a day, without pay amid oppressive conditions, including being punished with rubber pipe beatings and having an oily cloth stuffed in their mouths.

Gap stops sale of products from factory

Vowing not to carry any products produced at the factory, Gap Inc., which operates 3,100 stores internationally, has since fired the subcontractor responsible for the abuse.

"As soon as we were alerted to this situation, we stopped the work order and prevented the product from being sold in stores," Gap North America president Marka Hansen said in a statement issued hours after the story broke on Sunday.

"While violations of our strict prohibition on child labour in factories that produce product for the company are extremely rare, we have called an urgent meeting with our suppliers in the region to reinforce our policies."

It’s not the first time Gap Inc. has had to face criticism over child labour in overseas factories.

In 2000, a BBC documentary discovered a Cambodian factory using young girls to produce clothing for Gap. For its part, the company says it’s striving to ensure subcontractors adhere to its Code of Vendor Conduct, which strictly forbids the use of child labour. In 2006, the company stopped doing business with 23 factories, citing violations of that code.

Authorities too lax, says children's group

An Indian Non-Governmental Organization, Save the Children Foundation of India, had demanded the police action, saying authorities have been too lax for too long in tackling the issue of child labour.

"Police need to do a more proactive job," said Bhuwan Ribhu, a lawyer and activist with Save the Children. "The labour department needs to do a more proactive job, the sub-divisional magistrate who is the implementing authority of the labour act needs to do a much, much better job.

"And on top of everything else, we as common citizens need to be more aware of these things. There are people living in the area. They should have immediately called the police when they saw this happening."

Ribhu also called on the garment industry — a $10-billion a year business in India — to adopt an anti-child labour certification program, already in use by the carpet and sporting goods industries.

"It has to be on the ground," Ribhu said. "And it's high time the garment industry also takes a proactive stand and develops good, effective monitoring mechanisms with the civil society, the government and the trade unions to ensure that there is active public participation and there is no child labour."

The children rescued during the raids were herded into a nearby police station to be interviewed before they appear in court Tuesday. It may take weeks for them to be released and reunited with their families.