Anti-Poverty (Wrist) Bands Made With Forced Labor, Oxfam Says

Anti-poverty bands made with forced labour, Oxfam says
By Helen McCormack

30 May 2005

White wristbands sold by the Make Poverty History coalition were made in Chinese factories accused of using forced labour, it has been disclosed.

The fashionable white wristbands, worn by celebrities and politicians, including Tony Blair, were made for a coalition of charities as the symbol of its 2005 campaign to end extreme poverty.

Oxfam, Christian Aid and Cafod are among those charities selling the wristbands, made in rubber and fabric, for £1 each, of which 70p goes to the organisations.

But reports on two factories making the bands found the working conditions violated Chinese law and the standards of the Ethical Trading Initiative, which promotes better international working practices. "We were stupid," said Dominic Nutt at Christian Aid. "We didn't check it out, Cafod didn't check it out, and Oxfam didn't check it out."

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=642659

I mean, isn't everything made in foreign labor camps now.

band was made in China. I didn't know until I got it in the mail, and it rather spoiled the mood. I haven't worn it, as I think it quite ironic that something saying "wage peace" could have been made in a Chinese sweatshop. I wonder.

Un-F*cking Believable :banghead:

From this thread:
"I started by investigating kenblackwell.com which is a "Ken Blackwell for Ohio Governor" website. I did a whois for the domain which gave me a number of pieces of info. For example, the domain is hosted at IP address 68.152.85.31. That IP address hosts 117 different domains including things like citizensfortheprotectionofmarriage.com, citizensfortheprotectionoffaithandvalues.com, and defendmarriageyes.com, all of which display the website for something called the "Michigan Christian Citizens Alliance"."

It also hosts the 'one' antipoverty campaign websites such as:
http://www.one.org/

which is very weird.

IP hosts can be just commerical businesses, who will host anything legal. It's like an office building - they may rent offices to very different organisations right next to each other. But they'll end up with the same street address.

union-made?

...is highly suspect from every angle. Anybody know anything about the pink breast cancer bands? i know that Breast Cancer Action and the Think Before you Pink campaign are highly skeptical.

And - in adition to the sweatshop aspect - how does their manufacture affect the environment?

They are FAR worse than ours. It isn't even close.