GRIM BANGLADESH LEATHER TRADE EXAMINED
DHAKA, BANGLADESH— Hazardous, heavily polluting tanneries, with workers as young as 14, supplied leather to companies that make shoes and handbags for a host of Western brands, a nonprofit group that investigates supply chains says.
The report by New Yorkbased Transparentem, released last week to The Associated Press, didn’t say the leather ends up in American and European companies’ products, only that the manufacturers of some of those goods receive it.
Some companies say leather in their products was made outside Bangladesh, and manufacturers concur. Still, in response to the report, most brands switched factories, banned Bangladesh leather or demanded improvements.
The abuses alleged have plagued Hazaribagh, the hub of Bangladesh’s leather industry with more than 150 tanneries. The air is noxious with an eyestinging rotten-egg odor; children play on hills of rotting hide trimmings. The Buriganga River, drinking water for 180,000 people, shimmers with chemical runoff and human waste.
The $1 billion-a-year industry was ordered to move more than 15 years ago, but deadlines have passed without consequence.
Transparentem is not publishing its findings to protect investigators and workers, but shared them with AP.
The nonprofit said its Hazaribagh team tracked leather first-hand and with corporate reports from Apex Tannery Ltd. and Bay Tannery Ltd., to Bangladesh shoemakers Apex Footwear and Bay Footwear. Apex Tannery also sent leather to White Industries in South Korea. From White, Transparentem tracked leather to Simone Accessories, a South Korean handbag maker.
Using customs and business records, they found those factories manufacture for Clarks, Coach, Kate Spade, Macy’s, Michael Kors, Sears, Steven Madden and Timberland. Also included were Germany-based Deichmann, a shoe and sportswear chain, and two US firms — Harbor Footwear Group and Genesco — which design and market shoes in even more brands.
No one followed a piece of leather produced by a child to a particular purse or shoe.
“We tell brands and retailers what they may not, but should, know about those with whom they do business,” said E. Benjamin Skinner, founder of Transparentem.
The companies that responded told AP they’re committed to ending labor abuse in manufacturing. Some brands, the Bangladeshi companies involved and industry officials disputed the report’s findings.
Syed Nasim Manzur, managing director of Apex Footwear and a director at the Apex Tannery, calls Hazaribagh “an environmental disaster” and said they would soon close their plant there. But he said the report is a “smear campaign,” allegations of child labor are unsubstantiated, and Hazaribagh leather doesn’t end up in exported products.
Manzur said Apex Footwear and Apex Tannery are separate entities, although they have some owners in common.
Bay Footwear technical adviser Rezaur Rahman, speaking for Bay Group, which includes their tannery, called Transparentem’s findings “absolutely baseless.”
“We don’t have any child workers,” he said.
Coach said they’ve been getting no more than 1.5 percent of their leather from Hazaribagh and Kate Spade said their share is just 1 percent. Both said they had told buyers to source elsewhere.
Michael Kors and Harbor Footwear said they hadn’t knowingly sourced leather there, and won’t. Clarks and Deichmann said no Hazaribagh leather ended up in their products.
Sears, Timberland, Macy’s, Genesco and Steven Madden also said they weren’t getting leather from the tanneries, but were pushing for improvements at the related factories.
White Industry said it stopped using raw materials from Bangladesh late last year after being contacted by Coach, Michael Kors and Kate Spade.