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Article

1 Jul 2008

Author:
Rodolfo N. Yanzon, President of the Argentinean Human Rights League Foundation

Slavery and Textile Production in Argentina

During the 19th and 20th of December 2001, Fernando de la Rua's government collapsed...[F]amilies had been brought from Bolivia through false promises, escaping from hunger and a total absence of hope, to work in textile sweatshops located in the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Based on this experience, the Union of Textile Workers was formed as a union to bring together textile workers so they could escape the slave-like system of the textile workshops...[A] textile production system had been established in the country. This system benefitted big clothing brands which used illegal migrant labour. These foreign labourers suffered from exhausting working days in the workshops. They not only worked but also lived with their families in deplorable unhygienic conditions harmful to their health, suffering systematic ill-treatment and earning paltry salaries...As Mario Ganora affirms the situation of thousands of people in the textile workshops of Argentina is comparable to that of indentured servitude...In October 2005 the first criminal complaints were made about the conditions in the textile workshops in Buenos Aires...Our first obstacle in the judicial proceedings has been the difficulty of investigating police members and the members of the National Ministry of Migration...During 2007 we brought charges against the owners of more than eighty clothing brands...[Also refers to 47 Street, Adidas, Akiabara, Awada, Bensimon, Brugston, By Simons, Cheeky, Chorus Line, Duffour, Eagle, Gilmer, Kosiuko, Lacar, Le Coq Sportif, Leed’s, Montagne, PortSaid, Puma, Rusty Graciela Naum, Soho, Tavernitti, Top Design, Topper, Yagmour]