GoodWeave USA (formerly RugMark Foundation USA)

When GoodWeave (formerly RugMark) began, the South Asian handmade carpet industry exploited 1 million child laborers; today that number is estimated at 250,000. GoodWeave recruits manufacturers and exporters in the region, along with importers in the US, to make and sell child-labor-free carpets, and lends them its distinctive GoodWeave brand -- thus communicating, in word and deed, its strong anti-child-labor stance. More than 8 million certified child-labor-free rugs have now been sold. Inspectors visit licensees’ weaving facilities on a random basis and have rescued more than 3,700 child workers, who were offered rehabilitation, education, and vocational training. To date, more than 10,600 emancipated and at-risk children in India and Nepal have attended school under GoodWeave sponsorship, with 3,500 enrolled at the end of 2011. And in the spring of 2011, GoodWeave launched an initiative in Afghanistan’s weaving communities. Other sponsored social programs addressing the root causes of child labor include childcare for adult weavers and awareness campaigns in carpet-producing communities. In addition, the GoodWeave certification will soon incorporate broad social and environmental standards, and geographic expansion into additional rug producing countries is on the agenda. At its worst, child labor is both invisible and profitable. Let us make sure that it is neither.

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Nina Smith Executive Director 2001 S Street NW, Suite 510 Washington, DC 20009 202-234-9050 goodweave.org