GoodWeave & Land Rugs – working to end illegal child labour
GoodWeave is a global, not-for-profit organisation promoting ethically produced rugs and committed to ending all child labour in the rug industry, as well as running pioneering educational programmes. It is responsible for operating the GoodWeave certification programme internationally. Read how the founder of GoodWeave, Kailash Satyarthi, was awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize.
Land Rugs is a registered licensee with GoodWeave, guaranteeing that all weavers used by Land Rugs operate under ethically acceptable guidelines.
Like GoodWeave, Land Rugs believes that education for all is a fundamental human right. Its mission is to end illegal child labour in the rug and carpet industries and to offer educational opportunities to children, as well as support for families, in South Asia. The GoodWeave label ensures that no child labour was used to make any of our rugs.
GoodWeave’s initiative was first created in India in 1994 to provide independent, ethical accreditation that not only reassured consumers, but also provided better training and conditions for workers in the handmade rug industry. Since 1994, over 7 million GoodWeave labelled rugs and carpets have been exported to Europe and North America. Individual factories in countries such as Nepal and India sign up to GoodWeave and are regularly monitored with surprise visits by local inspectors. Retailers as far apart as North America, Germany and the UK – including Land Rugs – commit to selling GoodWeave approved products, and pay an annual subscription to the organisation as part of this joint contract for positive social change to help improve children’s rights. GoodWeave also supports workers’ families and encourages improved pay and working conditions in the rug factories. By 2018, GoodWeave-initiated programmes had directly freed nearly 4,000 children from exploitation and enrolled 24,000 children in schools rather than entering rug and carpet factories.Those rescued from working are reunited with their families, or taken to live at one of the sponsored rehabilitation educational centres. GoodWeave runs vital educational and welfare programmes for poor, weaving families and their children – providing pre-school day care for small children who would otherwise spend their days out of any educational setting, waiting around factories for their parents to finish work. By 2018 more than 59,000 workers had been covered under the GoodWeave System.
For further information about GoodWeave see: www.goodweave.org.uk and click on the video link below.