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On U.S. Tour, Former Child Carpet Slaves Tell All

Now 19, the two will visit Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., and Miami.

Meaghan O'Neill -- Interior Design, 3/30/2007 12:00:00 AM

Since 1994, RugMark has been working behind the scenes to end exploitative child labor in the carpet industry in South Asia. Now, the non-profit organization is putting a face on the story. As children, Jaya Bhandari and Sanita Lama, now 19, worked illegally as carpet slaves in Nepal, spending hours in Kathmandu rug factories and earning just pennies a day. Rescued from the looms by RugMark inspectors when they were eleven and ten respectively, they were placed in one of RugMark's community-based rehabilitation centers and later in school. Today, both are high school graduates helping other children in similar conditions.

This April, Bhandari and Lama will be telling the stories of their experiences as "carpet kids" to college students, importers, retailers, socially responsible investors, and others during a four-city U.S. tour through Boston (April 10), New York (April 11–13), Washington, D.C. (April 15), and Miami (April 16–17).

"Jaya and Sanita's visit will allow hundreds of people in the U.S. to come face-to-face with an otherwise anonymous issue," says Nina Smith, executive director of RugMark Foundation USA.

The organization also recently launched the Images, from top: Jaya Bhandari; Sanita Lama teaching a group of former rug industry slaves; Sanita Lama.Most Beautiful Rug campaign to increase consumer awareness about illegal child labor in the handmade rug industry, with hopes of ultimately increasing the market share of RugMark-certified rugs from one to seven percent over three years. Eventually, the group plans to achieve 15 percent market share by 2012, which RugMark estimates as the tipping point to completely eliminate child labor from the industry. To date, RugMark has helped 700,000 children escape enslavement on the looms.