Essay on Ikea Global Sourcing Challenge

Words: 2095
Pages: 9

Ikea Global Sourcing Challenge: Indian Rugs and Child Labor

IKEA and Marianne Barner are facing a very challenging issue. Because they were blind sided by the child labor issues with their supplier, they had to scramble to respond to the issues in a quick and appropriate manner. IKEA sent a legal team to Geneva to seek input and advice from the International Labor Organization on how to deal with the problem and to find out more about the child labor issues. They also hired a third party agent to monitor child labor practices in India and Pakistan and to conduct random audits to ensure there were no children working. They had all their suppliers sign a legal document stating that if a supplier employed children under legal working
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The laws for unbonded child labor were less absolute. This was a gray area, the laws only applied to children under 14 who were working in certain defined hazardous industries and the laws regulated children's hours and working conditions in others. The law specifically permitted children to work in craft industries. Even with the laws, the practice of exploitive child labor was widespread because of rationalizing. The laws were poorly enforced and prosecution was not severe so companies could use denial of responsibility, denial of injury, or denial of victim to rationalize why it was okay for their company to continue the use of child labor. IKEA has a history of social responsibility, so because of that one would think IKEA would choose to stand against the use of child labor in India and work to help solve the social problems. Because it seems their supplier is not abiding by their contract to not use child labor and their auditing of the factories with the company Scandinavian company did not find this, it seems the issue might be bigger than IKEA on it's own can handle. Their initial plan seemed to be well thought out and it seemed like the actions would help to solve the child labor issue with their own suppliers; with the new information from the German documentary maker it seems the issue has not been resolved. If there is proof