An investigation by The Observer Magazine into Britain's growing upmarket cotton market has uncovered children as young as seven working on Nile Valley plantations that provide cotton to the UK.

In the West, Egyptian cotton has become a byword for luxury. No top-class hotel is complete without starched white sheets from North Africa adorning its beds. In Britain alone, the cotton business, from sheets to high-street clothing, is worth billions.

Travelling across Egypt, the investigation by Dan McDougall, published on the 8th June 2008 in the Observer Magazine, found the fields that cling to the Nile full of children working the cotton for up to 10 hours a day, removing the bollworm, the cotton farmer's nemesis, and handling plants drenched in pesticides. Health studies are thin on the ground, but many of the children complain of breathing difficulties. A recent Unicef survey found nearly all the children questioned reported violent beatings by foremen.

EJF's director Juliette Williams talks to Dan McDougall about the problem that retailers in Britain have very little idea of where the cotton they sell is coming from.

She said: 'Egyptian cotton is synonymous with luxury, yet the reality behind its production is endemic child labour - up to a million children are working in the cotton fields each year. This is a scandal that companies need to redress. Yet when we have pressed companies on their supply chains, many tend to fudge the issue and simply say that they require their suppliers to meet certain standards within the factories that produce clothing. This misses the point. Companies need to get out of the factories and look at the fields. I think they, like us, would be horrified at what The Observer has found.'

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