Sourcebook helps find carpet, rugs free of child labor

 

New GoodWeave guide due out next week

Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, March 9, 2010

NEW YORK — RugMark USA, the nonprofit group working to end child labor in the carpet and rug industry worldwide, has published the GoodWeave Rug Sourcebook to help designers source ethically produced hand-made rugs.

The Sourcebook lists more than 70 North American rug companies whose products carry the GoodWeave label, independently certifying that their rugs were made without child labor. GoodWeave will introduce the guide during the Architectural Digest Home Design Show at Pier 94 here, March 18-21.

Since RugMark USA began in 1995, the number of children in exploitative carpet-making work has dropped from 1 million to 250,000, according to the group. Educational programs funded by certified product sales and donations provide former child laborers and at-risk children with rehabilitation, day care, schooling, vocational training and other services.

"Even though many of us don't realize it, we as designers have a choice to make every time we recommend a rug to a client: Will we fight child labor or will we support it?" said Betty Wasserman, a New York-based interior designer and RugMark USA board member. "I've been a designer for nearly 15 years and I'm still amazed at how easy, and yet so incredibly powerful, that choice is."

Interior designers can receive free copies of the guide by writing to info@GoodWeave.org.