An undercover Observer investigation has found children as young as 10 stitching Gap clothes in the back street of New Delhi, India. The story is reminiscent of the bad press the company received in the early 90s. Since then, Gap has been steadily building a reputation as one of the more progressive companies when it comes to labour rights. Gap’s ‘warts and all’ social responsibility reporting has won it plaudits where its competitors continue to deny the full scale of the problems in their supply chains; its response to the Let’s Clean up Fashion investigation was one of the better ones; and it has done some progressive collaborative work with trade unions and NGOs. 

What the story in the Observer demonstrates is that no company is doing enough to address the deep-rooted exploitation on which it relies to produce fashion at high-street prices. It suggests,  that while consumer pressure has done an awful lot to push certain retailers towards a more progressive outlook, there is much for us all still to do. There is no black and white list of bad and good companies, only shades of (pretty dark) grey.

Read more about the case on the Observer website.

Read Gap's profile on the Clean Up Fashion Website.

Read the Ethical Trading Initiative comment on the case on the ETI website.