Celebrity News

Kardashian products linked to sweatshop labor: report

The Kardashian family is allegedly profiting off of sweatshop labor, a study claims.

Star Magazine reports that several items sold under the K-Dash by Kardashian label, the Kris Jenner Kollection, and Kim Kardashian’s ShoeDazzle line are made in regions of China where factory workers are subjected to horrifying conditions. According to human rights investigators who went undercover at several factories linked to Kardashian products, while the reality TV family reeled in $65 million last year, workers at some factories making their products are paid as little as $1 an hour. Furthermore, some factory workers were found to be as young as 16-years-old.

While QVC, which distributes K-Dash by Kardashian and the Kris Jenner Kollection, has not made a statement about this matter, ShowDazzle has spoken out refuting the report.

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Charles Kernaghan, the executive director of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, which conducted the investigation, shares with Star that he is very displeased to see where several Kardashian products are made.

“The Kardashians are in bed with some pretty bad people,” alleges Kernaghan. “Not only are celebrities like the Kardashians taking advantage of these workers, they are holding hands with a government that spits on democracy and women’s rights.”

While many Kardashian products were found to have no links to sweatshop labor whatsoever, the ones of concern are produced in the Guangdong region of China. In Guangdong, workers toil in un-airconditioned factories, even as temperatures swell over 100 degrees. Workers live in squalid dormitories and, after they pay for room and board, often pocket as little as $15 a month. Some workers clocked as many as 84 hours a week under conditions that investigators describe as akin to “minimum security prisons.”

“You can’t talk during working hours,” Kernaghan explains. “You can’t listen to music; you can’t stand up and stretch. You can’t even put your head up and look around, or you will be screamed at. If you get permission to use the toilet, you get four minutes. If you’re highly specialized, you cannot even go to the bathroom.”

It’s a stark contrast to the Kardashian lifestyle.

While products endorsed by Carmen Electra and former Spice Girl Melanie Brown are also under fire by his organization, Kernaghan believes that Kim Kardashian could do the most to put an end to these practices.

“Kim has been very fortunate, but it’s time for her and her family to treat these workers with respect,” he says. “If she took a stand and said, ‘I want to manufacture my products in Chicago or Los Angeles, where I can ensure people humane conditions,’ she would be taking the right stand.”

The Kardashians’ rep, Jill Fritzo, says that the family is swiftly looking into these allegations.

“This is the first we are hearing about it and take it very seriously as we would never condone this,” Fritzo tells Radar Online. “We are presently investigating the situation.”

Meanwhile, the chief operating officer of ShoeDazzle has spoken out against the report.

“This issue of child labor is of paramount importance to us. We’ve been very focused on this from the very beginning,” Deborah Benton of ShoeDazzle tells TMZ. “Factories are routinely inspected and always pass inspection.”

Benton says that ShoeDazzle has never been contacted by the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights and adds that the company has its own full-time employee whose job it is to check factories daily.

“I’m more than happy to work with any organization that reaches out to us with a concern,” she said.