Atlanta Agreement, 1997 The Atlanta Agreement was formed in early 1997 after large attention from media and NGOs about child labour in the sports balls industry. The agreement aims to improve working conditions and eliminate the use of child labour, defined as under the age of 15, by sufficiently increasing the wage of adult workers so that their children will not need to stop school to stitch footballs. Production was moved from home-based stitchers to independently-monitored stitching centres. The ILO ran the programme until 2003, when the Pakistani organisation “Independent Monitoring Association for Child Labour” (IMAC) was formed.
“There are no particular standards for sports ball production, although different brands have their code of conducts. The majority of brands require their producers to become a member of IMAC and have their production monitored by IMAC. FIFA doesn’t issue a license to a producer unless he is an IMAC member…. Even for FLO certification, it is a prerequisite that producers are IMAC members.” -IMAC representative-
Current situation Nowadays, IMAC is responsible for monitoring the use of child labour, as laid out in the Atlanta Agreement, and on top of that, the organisation also ensures minimal working conditions (e.g. in terms of availability of drinking water, good ventilation, toilets, general hygiene, etc.) of producers who join the programme voluntarily. For more information, please refer to Chapter 3.2. INDIA
Similarly to IMAC in Pakistan, SGFI in India (http://www.sgfi.org) was established to tackle child labour in the sports balls industry. It was founded in 1998 by 25 exporters of sports goods. Monitoring is done by the companies themselves who report to SGFI and through external monitoring by SGFI. SGFI is funded by its members, who contribute a fixed percentage of their exports of inflatable balls to SGFI every month. This way of funding, however, has been criticized in view of independence. In addition, the ILRF reports that the number of SFGI employees to monitor the factories and stitching units is only nine, whereas the number of stitching units to be monitored is 3,300. More information about India can be found in Chapter 3.4.
› 1.2 SECTOR INITIATIVES Generally, sector initiatives focus on product quality and less on social and environmental requirements. Approval by sports federations, (such as FIFA), is specifically important when aiming to supply match balls, because usually only federation approved balls are used during official matches. For all other purposes, approval is not necessary as buyers realise that this may only increase purchasing prices. In this subsection an overview is given of the code of conduct of the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry and approvals from sports federations such as FIFA, FIVB, FIBA and IHF. THE WFSGI CODE OF CONDUCT
The World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry (WFSGI) is an independent association established by sporting goods brands, manufacturers, suppliers, retailers, national and regional federations and other sporting goods industry related business. The WFSGI has set up a code of conduct (http://www.wfsgi.org/articles/71) to which its members adhere. The code of conduct cites that its members must follow legal requirements, and further advises its members on the minimum criteria to follow where local legal requirements are absent or less farreaching than international standards.
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