Common press release from the
IG Bauen-Agrar-Umwelt, Union of Education and Science (GEW)
and XertifiX
Hannover / Frankfurt am Main – On the occasion of the Day against Child Labor, we want to point out the great successes in the fight against child labor. When XertifiX was founded together with the IG BAU in 2005, the main focus of our work was to comply with ILO core work standards. Through the controls in Indian quarries – especially unannounced ones – XertifiX has succeeded in the fact that in the quarries and factories controlled by XertifiX, fewer and fewer child laborers have been found over the years and today no children are working there.
From 2012, we have focused our work on improving the working conditions of adults, since 2014 also in China and Vietnam. There, too, no child laborers have been found in the natural stone industry in recent years. “Today, the partly catastrophic working conditions of adult workers are the focus. Anyone who buys gravestones, paving stones or kitchen tops does not realize that they are mostly produced at the expense of the health of the Asian workers, “says XertifiX chairman Ingrid Sehrbrock,” unless reliable certificates ensure decent working conditions and living wages. This is the work of XertifiX”.
