Monday 8 December 2008

Child labour in the NHS

Given my recent post about the War on Want campaign against Primark I suppose I should post this story from tomorrow's Guardian before anyone else gets a chance to bring it up. As to what I'm doing reading online papers at 2.30am... it's been one of those nights.

5 comments:

Leviathan said...

Good of you to point it out. Will you be bringing it up in Parliament?

On a related matter, what is your opinion on the use of "internal markets" and the targets culture in the NHS? Don't you think staff should be trusted to do a good job and work without being micromanaged by the government?

Kerry said...

Possibly, at health Qs. Which I think is week after next.

And nice try, but not falling for it.

Unknown said...

If you get a chance to bring this up could you also bring up the downside of immediately dumping these suppliers. Namely that these children aren't just working for the fun of it they are often supporting their family. Kicking them out will just force them into a different and more destructive industry ( prostitution for one ).

Anonymous said...

I was going to query your statement on the fashion thread:

"It would be quite easy for designers to confirm that they do not use child labour or people on poverty wages to make the finished item."

It isn't. A point made in this article:

"buyers at NHS trusts did not know about the problem because of the complex supply chains that bring the products to Europe."

There's an awful lot of businesses turning blind eyes on these issues way beyond suppliers of budget clothes.

The problem is endemic in outsourced manufactured goods basically, pretending it's a case of a few bad apples is to misunderstand the problem.

Kerry said...

Yes, but I was talking about designer fashion, not manfuactured goods - e.g. if the clothes are made in Milan, then it's pretty easy to be sure no child labour was involved, depending of course on where the fabric is sourced from.