Australian surfwear giant Rip Curl has sold millions of dollars worth of clothes made in North Korea, where factory workers are being exploited.
Rip Curl blames a Chinese manufacture for subcontracting the production of its surf and snow gear to a factory outside Pyongyang, an action Rip Curl insists it only became aware of after products had been hung on retail racks. The apparent ignorance in this case is disturbing. But in other instances, companies appear to have wilfully closed eyes to potential abuses.
A report by Baptist World Aid this month highlighted the danger that raw materials such as tin and cobalt could be dug from dangerous mines in Indonesia or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where exploitation of child workers has been reported. The report's author is correct: "If companies don't know or don't care then they cannot ensure that workers are not being exploited."
Responsibility not only rests with companies, but consumers too. We must be willing, if necessary, to pay more to know more, just as companies should be willing to forgo a measure of profit to act responsibly. Consumers can only make an informed choice when companies are transparent about where materials are supplied, and that can only occur when companies make the effort to find out.
