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GoodWeave - Purchase with Confidence

GoodWeave - Purchase with Confidence

Founding Supply Chain Transparency

GoodWeave was born in an Indian jail cell in the early 1990s. After reuniting a trafficked child weaver with his mother, future Nobel Prize Laureate Kailash Satyarthi was outraged to see dozens of children with a labour broker. Imprisoned overnight for causing a disturbance, he awoke with a simple idea; follow the money. If companies and consumers refuse to buy products tainted by child labour, producers can’t make them. Kailash reached out to allies and GoodWeave International was officially established in 1997. It was the first organisation to use product labelling to remediate a human rights issue.

Ending child labour is everyone’s business. Sometimes the sweat of children is literally woven into the products we buy every single day. Child labour taints global manufacturing supply chains across sectors–from carpets and garments to chocolate and tea.

In the carpet industry where GoodWeave has worked for over 20 years, "carpet kids” sit at looms for up to 14 hours per day, using sharp tools to weave carpets with no access to education. Some are trafficked to loom sheds far from home – often under threat of violence – to work off a family debt that can never be repaid on meagre weaving wages.

Today, GoodWeave’s market-driven model includes company engagement, supply chain inspections, product certification, consumer awareness, victim rescue and remediation and preventative efforts such as educational programmes in at-risk communities. GoodWeave reaches layers of the supply chain that were previously invisible – making child labour a thing of the past.

The True Value of the Label

Since 2005, Namaste has been a member of GoodWeave, a non-profit organisation, dedicated to ending child labour, forced labour and bonded labour in global supply chains.

Each year, we donate a portion of our rug sales to support the GoodWeave mission.

Namaste has been selling fairly traded rugs from India for many years. We are proud of the progress our suppliers have made with our support.

We have taken the extra step of GoodWeave certification for all our Indian rug suppliers to provide the added reassurance of a totally independent monitoring body. GoodWeave is an award-winning pioneering charity and we are pleased to work with them.

GoodWeave aims to stop child labour in the carpet industry and to replicate its market-based approach in other sectors. The GoodWeave label is the best assurance that no child labour was used in the making of your rug.

Traceability

Each certified rug features a numbered label on the reverse that can be traced back to the producer, linking you directly to the lives at the other end of the supply chain.

Buying a GoodWeave certified rug from Namaste supports educational opportunities for children in India who might otherwise be required to work. Hand crafted by adult artisans, these rugs make a beautiful statement at home and make the world a better place.

When you purchase a rug that carries the GoodWeave label, you are helping to improve the lives of children and the weaving communities in India through education and rescue missions.

What is GoodWeave? By GoodWeave

"For more than two decades, GoodWeave has refined a unique, market-based model to fight the use of child labour. The joined market forces fuel our work in cleaning up supply chains, rescuing and educating child labourers, and improving work for adults. Our system is holistic, and it works.

Now we’re putting it to work in other sectors where children are being exploited—and making human rights an intrinsic part of the global marketplace.”


How are Standards Maintained?

GoodWeave certified rugs are produced by licensed exporters, who have agreed to produce rugs in accordance with the GoodWeave Standard, and allow unannounced inspections by GoodWeave.

The GoodWeave Standard prohibits child labour, forced labour and bonded labour, and requires full disclosure and transparency of the producer’s supply chain.

Producers also undergo a separate annual audit to document their performance against the Standard’s Progress Principles. The Progress Principles include broader workers’ rights such as freedom of association and collective bargaining, as well as no discrimination, decent working conditions, and minimizing negative environmental impacts in production.

GoodWeave certification labels are only issued to licensed producers selling products to licensed importers. Producers must first be approved by GoodWeave’s Certification Committee in order to be licensed and use the label.

An Invisible Crime

Child labourers often forfeit the chance to ever begin school, giving them the highest illiteracy rates in the world. Victims are 5-14 years of age, and more than half of them, 85 million, are in hazardous work that spans mining, fishing, manufacturing, and agriculture.

Some of these children have been kidnapped or sold, with the International Labour Organization (ILO) further estimating 5.5 million of them as bonded and slave labourers.

Slavery, human trafficking, prostitution, and activities that directly harm the physical, mental, and moral well-being of a child are considered "Worst Forms of Child Labour.” While corporate social auditing improves working conditions at "first tier” factories, the worst exploitation takes place outside of the factory where many layers of subcontracting (tiers 2-4) turn child labour into an invisible crime.

Complex and shifting informal labour systems leave a large proportion of child labour unmonitored and unaddressed behind closed doors in hidden workplaces.

What is GoodWeave's relation to ISEAL?

GoodWeave is a full member of the ISEAL Alliance, making its certification label among the world’s most credible and robust. GoodWeave meets the criteria recommended by ISEAL to use when evaluating any label claim: The claim must be clear and free from misleading details. It is based on substantiated evidence. Its system is transparent and information about the claim is freely available and accessible.

There are significant controls as to how the label is issued and used. GoodWeave is committed to these criteria and to ISEAL’s Codes of Good Practice which are seen as a global reference for developing credible standards.

What are GoodWeave's Achievements?

GoodWeave is the only organisation that rescues and educates child labourers found during supply chain inspections. Rescuing children from a life of servitude represents a monumental step toward giving them a better life, but it is just the beginning. To stem the tide of child labour, it is important to ensure that children from vulnerable worker communities are given access to education. GoodWeave sponsors the education of rescued and at-risk children in carpet-weaving communities, totalling 3,800+ to date. GoodWeave also operates day-care centres, informal schooling, and community initiatives to encourage education and prevent child labour.

Since GoodWeave’s founding, more than 20,000 children have benefited from the organisation’s education and rehabilitation programs, including 3,800 directly rescued from the looms. GoodWeave works with 140+ global licensees, importing certified rugs into 16 consumer countries.

In 2020, the organisation's 25th year of fighting to end child labour, GoodWeave labelled their 25 millionth rug as child labour free.

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