Report examines grim Bangladesh leather trade, links to West
DHAKA, Bangladesh ( AP) – 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 York-based Transparentem, released Friday 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 eye-stinging 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. Last week, Bangladesh’s High Court banned deliveries of gas, water and electricity to the tanneries. Rawhide supplies have also been ordered halted, yet they’re still in business.
Transparentem’s confidential Hazaribagh report and accompanying video, shared with about a dozen com- panies, showed workers at five different tanneries bent double under the weight of soaking wet cow hides, shuffling past heavy machinery. They whip handheld razors through leather. Chemical barrels lean against walls. The floor is wet, some workers are barefoot.
Bangladesh prohibits anyone under 18 from tannery work. The report says that in 2015, a mother confirmed her child at work was 14. Footage from 2016 showed the child still working there. On the video, a teen, 17, told the videographer his age. And there’s 2016 footage of two workers agreeing 15-year-olds are onsite.
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 U.S. firms – Harbor Footwear Group and Genesco – which design and market shoes in even more brands.