Gap scrambles to contain damage from sweatshop allegations

California clothing retailer, Gap, Inc., is reeling from a report in Britain’s Observer newspaper that found children as young as 10 making clothes for the Gap in a squalid factory in New Delhi. The children said they had been working for up to 15 hours a day and had never been given promised wages for embroidering sequins onto the flowing saris worn by Indian women. An AP report said the children were packed into a filthy room, sleeping on the same floor where they sewed all day. Gap responded by saying the factory was being run by a subcontractor who was hired in violation of Gap’s policies, and none of the products made there will be sold in its stores. “We appreciate that the media identified this subcontractor, and we acted swiftly in this situation,” Gap spokesman Bill Chandler told an AP reporter. “Under no circumstances is it acceptable for children to produce or work on garments.”