In a stunning world exclusive exposé Star magazine is reporting that the Kardashian family are endorsing and selling fashion products manufactured in foreign sweatshops, where workers, some as young as sixteen years old, are abused and virtually imprisoned.
The allegations about Kardashian products in this post have nothing to do with their products sold at Sears.
“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.”
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While the Kardashians are involved with many fine consumer products in the fashion, beauty, fragrance, health and lifestyle industries that are not part of this investigation, there are several brands that are coming under fire. Items in the family’s high-end K-Dash by Kardashian label and the Kris Jenner Kollection — sold on the home-shopping television network QVC — and ShoeDazzle, a company that Kim cofounded and endorses, are all manufactured in areas of China where government regulations are often ignored and workers are subject to inhumane conditions.
Li Qiang, the executive director of China Labor Watch, says that the reality stars are turning a blind eye to human rights abuses, for the sake of their bottom line. “People like the Kardashians are producing their products in China because they will get more profit, since the labor cost is so low compared to the United States and other countries,” he tells Star exclusively.
The sweatshop workers live in squalid factory-run dormitories filled with the stench of sewage while toiling up to 84 hours during seven-day work weeks to produce some of the goods that helped Kourtney, 32, Kim, 31, Khloé, 27, mom Kris, 56, and the rest of their family earn $65 million last year.
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Shockingly, the impoverished workers earn just a paltry $1 an hour, slaving away in factories in the Guangdong region of China, which Kernaghan describes as being “like minimum-security prisons.”
The region is a “scary place,” Kernaghan continues, where the peak summer season is “brutal,” with temperatures inside non-air-conditioned factories soaring to over 100˚F. 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.
“You can’t talk during working hours,” Kernaghan adds. “You can’t listen to music; you can’t stand up and stretch. You can’t even put your head up and look around, or you will be screamed at. If you get permission to use the toilet, you get four minutes. If you’re highly specialized, you cannot even go to the bathroom.”
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Star has learned that human-rights groups have dispatched their undercover investigators to a number of factories that have been linked to the Kardashians. And, Kernaghan says, it is time for the world and the Kardashians to take some responsibility. “Kim has been very fortunate, but it’s time for her and her family to treat these workers with respect,” he tells Star.
“Kim, for example, could say, ‘It ain’t going to be all about me, me and me.’ She could do something and not leave behind a broken mess of women and children. If she took a stand and said, ‘I want to manufacture my products in Chicago or Los Angeles, where I can ensure people humane conditions,’ she would be taking the right stand.”
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