Child labour - GAP

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The document is an illustration which represents two people.

 

On the left, there is a little boy. He is both crying and screaming. He is sewing a tag on white T-Shirts. He seems naked or poorly dressed. His left foot is enchained to the wall, so that he can’t escape.

 

On the right, there is a man, he looks angry and terrifying. Unlike the boy, the man is fully dressed and he looks rather rich. His left finger is pointing at the white T-Shirts piled on the floor, whereas he is holding a whip in his right hand, in order to threaten and beat the little boy.

 

Obviously, he forces him to work.

 

The scene takes place in India, as the man’s clothes imply. The boy’s workplace is a little room where he is fully isolated, and there are bars at the windows ; he is not free. On the door, we can see a locker, proving that the boy is imprisoned.

The animals represented on the cartoon also prove that the conditions of work are insalubrious for the little boy.

 

The brand represented is GAP and the little boy screams GASP which means that he cannot breathe, because of the smallness of the room and unhealthy conditions in which he is working. GAP and GASP are very similar words : the cartoonist wanted to make an innuendo to the fact that GAP deprives the children of their oxygen.

 

The cartoonist wanted to denounce child labour in India.

He also wanted to show the world that big brands such as GAP use the children to produce expensive clothes, whereas these children are underpaid.