Victoria’s Secret claims that some of its cotton lingerie is made with “fair trade” fibers from Burkina Faso. However, as Cam Simpson reports in Bloomberg Markets Magazine, some of that cotton was harvested by child labor: 

Made with 20 percent organic fibers from Burkina Faso,” reads a stamp on that garment, purchased in October.

Forced labor and child labor aren’t new to African farms. Clarisse’s cotton, the product of both, is supposed to be different. It’s certified as organic and fair trade, and so should be free of such practices.

Planted when Clarisse was 12, all of Burkina Faso’s organic crop from last season was bought by Victoria’s Secret (LTD), according to Georges Guebre, leader of the country’s organic and fair- trade program, and Tobias Meier, head of fair trade for Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation, a Zurich-based development organization that set up the program and has helped market the cotton to global buyers. Meier says Victoria’s Secret also was expected to get most of this season’s organic harvest, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its February issue.

[Photo credit: jensconspiracy, Creative Commons.]