Ch.3 Ethics and Social Responsabilities

   Of all the issues that fall under the very broad heading "business ethics," child labour is among those least likely to be seen as grey. On December late last year, an controversial issue came out after revelations that Victoria's Secret had a deal with a cotton company (Burkina Faso) who forced children to work.

   In the past years, Victoria's Secret had been buying almost all  the cotton produced by Burkina Faso, under a deal that a third-party was going to be monitoring the production to insure it was organic cotton. All these came out when Bloomberg published the story of a thirteen-year-old child who works at the cotton field located in West Africa and gets beat when she slow down her work.

   Somehow, Victoria's Secret as much as Burkina Faso failed. Victoria's Secret because their third-party didn't do their job monitoring the fields and, Burkina Faso because they were irresponsables and abused of the children. Also, Fairtrade International said that Burkina Faso program met its standards and a Limited Brands executive visited the country early this year and didn't see anything erratic.

   On another note, this issue hurt the company itself and its ethical image. But it's for sure that Victoria's Secret followers will forget about it by the everyday consumer before long.

   Victoria's Secret social responsability and multinational companies as well is to make sure they look more extensively into where their materials are coming from.