The Kardashians Might Use Child Labor to Make Their Clothes
First there was Kim's whole wedding debacle, now there's the PR bombshell that some of the clothes the Kardashians sell on QVC and other products they endorse are made in China using what is akin to slave labor. Uh-oh!
Star magazine learned that the factories that make the QVC brands K-Dash by Kardashian and the improbably spelled Kris Jenner Kollection as well as ShoeDazzle, a company Kim endorses, use unfair labor practices. The Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights is investigating the factories saying that workers work 84 hours a week, get paid only $1 an hour, toil in 100-degree heat without air conditioning, and live in squalor. Some of the employees are as young as 16, which is hardly child labor, but isn't so great. You can work younger in some parts of the U.S., but you probably wouldn't have a job where you get screamed at for talking, stretching, or trying to take a bathroom break. The investigators liken the conditions to being in prison. While the workers may take home only $15 a month after paying their employers for rent and food, the Kardashians made $65 million last year.
Of course, the K-Klan is very, very concerned about where their clothes are coming from. "This is the first we are hearing about it and take it very seriously as we would never condone this," their rep said. Well, Kathie Lee weathered her child labor scandal—after cleaning up her act—let's hope the Kardashian's can too. Let's hope they stop using shoddy factories, whether or not people still like them after this is a whole different question.
