Not in India!

why we don't produce in India

Looking at our prices customers sometimes wonder why we don't produce in so-called "cheap labour-countries". In this way we would be able to sell our baby-slings much cheaper. This seems like a tempting possibility at first, but is later revealing a lot of problems which we will explain to you in detail. We hope that you will have the patience.
Take for example India:

When the worldwide request for cheap cotton wool was increasing more and more farmers from India were tempted to grow cotton instead of food plants. For them the cotton seemed to be paid quite well. And this is how the cotton wool started to spread all over India and the cotton wool belt was created in the south-Indian county Andhra Pradesh.
The cotton wool pests also love the Indian climate, profit from the mono-culture and are slowly becoming resistant to the insecticides.
Today Indian cotton farmers use anything that promises to keep the cotton bollworm at bay on their fields. Even toxins that have already been banned in Europe are used by the farmers with no regard to their own health. And many people who are processing the cotton wool are dying at a young age due to the evaporations. A second reason for the short life-expectancy of Indian cotton farmers is the debt-trap. Insecticides are expensive because they are produced in the industrial world. It is often the case that the farmer has to pawn his harvest to the supplier of the insecticides even before it is sown. That's why he can never again plant something else but cotton. Some farmers notice after the harvest that they actually don't own any of it, and many of them choose to drink from the bottle with the death's head.
This system, by sociologists called "dept bondage" has spread to other parts of India's textile industry, too, due to globalisation.
If you want to weave you need a weaving loom. A tradesman offers you a loan, delivers the goods and takes the woven material - for his prices, of course. From then on the weaver is working for the loan interest only. The products are then sold in our country with the friendly label "hand-woven in India". An other problem is the water.
The cotton plant is usually content with the surface water if it isn't too dirty. But all the other processing steps need drinking water and produce waste water: Dyeing mills in India seldom work with closed water circulation, but lead the sewage unpurified into the open country-side.
Even more water is used for the many washes at the end of the production line. For the end-product to fulfil at least our "Ökotex Standard 100" the toxins named above have to be completely washed out of the fabric. This is only possible with a lot of clean water.
Again the poor have to 'pay this bill': Tradesmen have realized quickly enough how to turn the water shortage into money. Many working families are spending one third of their income on drinking water. And why does the Indian government allow this to happen?
Because it is also trapped in the debt-trap and is depending on the exports. In a world in which global Playen is chic and avarice is cool government regulations have little chance. Somewhere on this planet there will always be a country which cannot afford social responsibility. And if India is becoming too expensive the locusts of the market economy will then invade Bangladesh or Burkina Fasso. A few of the major German trading combines have tried with quite noble motives to influence Indian dealers - with very little success. If you pay more money for the same product to insure particular social standards it will cause that some local dealers find ways to lead the extra money into their own pockets. And when once a year the controller from Germany arrives the children are quickly taken from the weaving looms and the sewage purification plant is out of work because of maintenance. In addition, unscrupulousness is carrying the strangest fruits where an outside force gives the culprit justification for his actions. The Indian exploiter is excusing himself with the conditions that his customers from Europe have forced upon him. If he made his business mainly with Indian customers his company would probably be smaller but also fairer.
That is why we produce our DIDYMOS-slings and children's clothes here where they are sold. We donate regularly to charities in order to help improving living conditions in poorer countries. These charities are working specifically with and for children and carry the DZI-seal.

A few of the sources for this article:

The use of pesticides
Impact of pesticides
Trials with GMO cotton
Bonded Labor
Studies about child labour in India (pdf)
child labour in the "cotton belt"
child labour - the government
child labour - Human Rights Watch
Tirupur - Centre of textile industry
textile industry and water
Privatisation of the water supplies
government initiatives