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The Ugly Side Of Those Beautiful Rugs
January 8, 2006
I was sitting at a lunch table at a multinational consumer conference when I first learned about Rugmark, an international organization that rescues children from slavery at the rug looms in India, Nepal and Pakistan. One story never left me: that of a 5-year-old boy who was stolen from his family when his parents refused to sell him for three dollars.

Child slavery and exploitation still constitute a huge portion of the labor force that creates those beautiful Oriental rugs that consumers love so much. According to the Rugmark Foundation, 300,000 children are illegally forced to work in the carpet industries of India, Nepal and Pakistan, the Big Three in hand-made Oriental carpets. These youngsters are valuable because their small fingers are perfect for the tedious work of hand-knotting.

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To be clear, we're not talking about all child labor, such as children helping out on a family farm while still attending school. We are talking about exploitive labor, where children are actually enslaved or are forced to work 12 to 16 hours a day in sweatshop conditions and paid so little they can barely buy a bowl of food for dinner. These are children who are abused, who sleep on the floor next to their looms and have no hope of ever getting out unless they get sick, die or are sold for sexual exploitation.

Since 1995, the Washington-based Rugmark Foundation has rescued 3,000 of these children and, with their families' permission (if there is a family), brought them into Rugmark boarding schools where they get safe housing, food and an education.Rugmark has prevented enslavement of thousands more through inspection, legislation and publicity.

It hasn't come easily.

After Iran banned children from rug-making in the 1970s, (yes, Iran), production moved to South Asia where the labor force was comprised largely of children, some as young as 5. Some of these kids are sold for a few dollars by parents desperate to keep the rest of the family alive. Others are simply ensnared by poverty. Once in, they can't get out because they are paid almost nothing or because the loom owners claim the kids owe them "debts" and therefore any "pay" is retained. Such practices are banned by the United Nations and the International Labor Office and considered slavery.

The Rugmark Foundation works by rescuing these children and by certifying loom owners who use no child labor and permitting them to attach the RUGMARK label to their products. The foundation makes both announced and unannounced inspections. The RUGMARK label, a smiling cartoon face against a carpet background, bears a certification number that can be traced back to the loom where the rug was made to prevent misuse. The foundation has no police authority. Its strength comes from consumer awareness and action: Buyers can help stop illegal child labor by purchasing only RUGMARK certified carpets or those approved by other oversight organizations.

This human tragedy is nowhere near resolution. According to Nina Smith, executive director of the foundation, Rugmark certifies only 1 percent of the $1.2 billion worth of Oriental rugs sold annually in the United States, about half of them coming from the Big Three. There are 30 U.S. import companies selling RUGMARK certified carpets to 800 retailers around the country.

Rugmark hopes to increase its share of certified carpets to 15 percent within the next decade through a consumer awareness program. "We believe that this level of market penetration could completely eliminate exploitative child labor in the rug industries of India, Nepal and Pakistan," Smith said.

But the system can't work without the commitment of the importers and retailers. They make the decision whether to deal in illegal labor-free rugs - or to close their eyes. One importer, Emma Gardner Design LLC. in Litchfield, has made that commitment. As a licensee of the Rugmark Foundation, Emma Gardner deals only in certified, child labor-free carpets. Its sole Connecticut retailer is Cobble Court in Litchfield.

Company president Patrick McDarrah is passionate about the subject. He says, "The biggest problem," he says, "is dealer apathy. Sitting in between manufacturers and consumers, they could really make a difference."

I made random calls to some of the large Oriental carpet retailers around the state to learn whether they deal in RUGMARK certified carpets. Beside Cobble Court, the only other one is Circa 2000 in Westport (supplied by New Moon). No one from Kaoud's returned my calls, and Mike Norman of Pasha's Rugs in West Hartford declined to discuss the matter.

John Kebabian, Jr., owner of Kebabian's in New Haven, says he insures against illegal child labor by maintaining his own group of home weavers. This doesn't mean he uses no child labor, just no illegal child labor. He says any children working on his rugs are doing so in their own homes and under the supervision of their parents, not in sweatshops.

But he paints a bleak picture in India. "I've seen traders in New Delhi with huge warehouses filled with junk. They don't care who made them. The rugs [are shipped here] and sold at phony going-out-of-business sales, auctions, and fraternal halls and estate sales. [And some] retailers set an artificially high price and then discount it, and the buyers think they're getting a bargain."

So, if carpets don't have the Rugmark or other oversight organizations' certification, how does the consumer know if they were made with illegal child labor? "The consumer can't know because the dealers don't know. Most of their rugs are consigned. They can't even tell you where they came from," says Kebabian.

Joe Namnoun, owner of J. Namnoun's Oriental Rug Gallery in Hartford, says he protects against illegal child labor by dealing in only high-end rugs, $50 a square foot and up. "The higher up the food chain you go, the less child labor you have. These are sophisticated, controlled designs and you don't see child labor there."

To avoid the cheaper carpets that are more likely to be made by children, Namnoun also warns against ridiculously high percent-off sales. "Does anyone really believe that you're going to get a $10,000 rug for $3,000?" adding that retailers who advertise this way often keep those same sale signs on for long periods. "They're not really sales and you're usually getting low-end, low-quality products."

Not all dealers support attempts to end child labor. Armen Proudian, owner of A T Proudian, Inc. of Greenwich, believes we should leave well enough alone. He says he doesn't "belong or subscribe to any of these [oversight] organizations." Now he deals mostly in antique rugs but concedes, "At one time, we were direct importers and of course we used child labor. Were these kids underage? Hell, yes. Were they underpaid? Hell, yes. But did we pay them according to their standards? Hell, yes, and that meant they could eat.

"You don't want to get a flat tire in one of these places because about eight kids will come and fight to the death to change the tire. You can yell about child labor and have the kids starve to death or allow them to work and survive." Proudian dismisses "pompous ass" politicians who "try to impose our standards on people barely able to survive."

"I'm not talking about slavery," he said. "My partners, who are Pakistani, make sure they get paid so they can eat."

Smith disagrees. "This just keeps them in the cycle of poverty." She emphasizes that Rugmark is not shutting down looms, but rather providing an alternative to exploitative child labor that keeps these kids in misery, often for a lifetime.

Says McDarrah, "... we all know that, label or not, (the) issue is who made the rugs and that it is not acceptable to support child labor. We are hoping that our industry can get to where apparel is now, after the Nike and other scandals of the too recent past... the point is not, `yes we know they are under aged and underpaid but it's OK because that's the way it is over there.' It is that exploitation is always wrong."

"Retailers, manufacturers and consumers who choose to ignore the facts have blood on their hands," McDarrah said.

The University of Connecticut's Human Rights Institute has the only UNESCO Chair in Human Rights in the USA. Visit www.humanrights.uconn.edu

June Sandra Neal is a freelance writer in West Hartford. She was director of communications and consumer education for the state Department of Consumer Protection for 23 years."