THANK YOU, reader Danielle for posting a tip about this on my FB, much obliged. It’s being reported in the new issue of Star, I know… I know… that the Kardashians are using foreign slave labour in the manufacture of their Kardashian Kollection. The report is being parroted in sister outlet RadarOnline.com, who report: ‘The Kardashians are in bed with some pretty bad people,’ Charles Kernaghan, the executive director of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, tells Star: ’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.’ TMZ.com also reports the investigation, giving the story legs: ‘A human rights group is investigating claims that workers in China, as young as 16, are working in squalid conditions to manufacture merchandise for the K-Dash by Kardashian label, the Kris Jenner Kollection and ShoeDazzle.’ Pimp momager attempts to clarify that the stolen designs aren’t made using slaves, except there’s no way she’d know for sure since she’s never visited where the items are manufactured: ‘As far as I know the factories that are used to manufacture the Kardashian clothing and shoes have nothing terrible going on at all and the factories are very well policed and meet factory standards.’ The Kardashians are now being accused of co-signing human rights abuses to pad their bottom line, with ‘slaves’ allegedly working silently in hot, un-ventilated, squalid factories that are ‘like minimum-security prisons,’ giving minimal or no bathroom breaks, and ‘liv[ing] in squalid factory-run dormitories filled with the stench of sewage while toiling up to 84 hours during seven-day work weeks… [earning $1 an hour]. Workers in the region can come out with as little as $15 a month once rent and food debts have been paid to their bosses.’ Li Qiang, executive director of China Labor Watch, adds: ‘People like the Kardashians are producing products in China because they will get more profit, since the labor cost is so low compared to the United States and other countries.’
