Silk is synonymous with luxury and the very finest most decadent things in life, from pyjamas to bed sheets. The cost to the silkworms is terrible with thousands boiled, gassed or steamed alive for just half a kilo of silk, but a new video report out from CNN this month has accused the Indian silk industry of being inextricably tied to bonded labour, in other words, modern-day slavery. We take a look at the true cost of silk to both animals and humans.

The cost in lives linked to silk is beyond comprehension. 3,000 silkworms are brutally killed in their cocoons for every 500g of silk and around 202,000 metric tons of the luxury fabric are produced each year mostly from China and India, giving us an upward estimate of around 1.2 trillion silkworms killed each year not including silk produced through less violent ‘peace silk’ methods where the larvae are allowed to mature into full adult moths. However, to put that top figure into perspective, that’s ten times the number of stars in our galaxy, or 173 silkworms killed each year for every person on Earth.

Silkworms are moths, and would normally go through all the same stages of metamorphosis as any other moth. However, to quote Surge co-director Ed Winters in our latest campaign video Animals in Fashion: Everything you need to know in 12 minutes released this week:

“...the silk used in the fashion industry comes from domesticated silkworms that aren’t allowed to go through all of their natural stages. Most of the insects raised by the industry are boiled, steamed or gassed alive inside their cocoons so we can use the cocoons’ fibre without damaging it. Silkworms have also been selectively bred to have larger cocoon sizes and higher growth rate.

Further, according to the Pulse of the Fashion Industry report, silk is the second least sustainable fabric due to its global warming potential and use of fossil fuels.

As if all that wasn’t terrible enough, a video report from the CNN Freedom Project this week has accused the Indian silk industry of playing a part in bonded labour, otherwise referred to as modern-day slavery. The short documentary tells the story of Hadia and Naseeba, two reportedly bonded silk labourers working in Sidlaghatta, a silk hub some 65 kilometers northeast of Bangalore. According to CNN:

This mother and daughter were forced by their "master" to work 11 hours a day, for which they earned just 200 rupees (about $2.75) to repay a 100,000-rupee (about $1,370) loan that had since doubled in size.

Naseeba had been working for three years in a silk factory, her mother nine years, boiling silkworm cocoons and removing the threads from which silk is made. The steam was foul and their hands bled, she said.

The reprisals for failing to perform the work were severe by their accounts, often involving threats of physical and sexual violence.

Much of the story of bonded labour in the silk industry, at least in the state of Karnataka where it was filmed, is corroborated by the accounts of Kiran Kamal Prasad, founder of Jeevika, an organisation working to eradicate bonded labour including holding local authorities responsible for enforcing India’s Bonded Labor System Act.

The report is by no means exhaustive, looking at a small section of a global industry with around six times more silk coming out of China than India. Critics of the report also argue that it misrepresents the role women play and at just one stage of production, with most being somewhat more empowered ‘silk entrepreneurs’ rather than silk slaves.

According to Swarajya, a liberal right-of-centre publication that often covers topics relating to entrepreneurship:

There are two serious distortions in the documentary on the subject of bonded labour in the silk industry. One is that the treatment is completely at odds with how the industry in India is organised and, as a result, does not really fit the category of “criminal enterprises trading in human life” even if a few people in the industry indulge in unjust practices (which anyway is common in various industries in many parts of the world).

Basically, the bad apple argument. But what if we look to other reports out of India such as this from an article by Human Rights Watch (HRW) entitled Child Slaves Abandoned to India's Silk Industry - Burns, Beatings and 12-Hour Days for Bonded Children:

The Indian government is failing to protect the rights of hundreds of thousands of children who toil as virtual slaves in the country's silk industry…

The 85-page report, "Small Change: Bonded Child Labor in India's Silk Industry," calls on the Indian government to implement its national laws to free and rehabilitate these "bonded children." Bound to their employers in exchange for a loan to their families, they are unable to leave while in debt and earn so little they may never be free. A majority of them are Dalits, so-called untouchables at the bottom of India's caste system.

In addition to India, Human Rights Watch has also investigated bonded labor in Pakistan and Japan and has advocated for prosecution of offenders and rehabilitation of bonded laborers in Nepal and Sri Lanka.

The HRW report confirms the prolific nature of bonded labour in Indian silk production in Karnataka where CNN filmed its documentary, but also in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in the south. Also mentioned in relation to bonded labour are countries like Nepal and Sri Lanka, and even Japan where many would assume workers rights are better protected.

While most silk is produced and exported from China, where there is an absence of reports concerning humans rights violations in regards to silk manufacturing, it is clear that silk is an industry of extreme exploitation of both human and non-human animals, and as such should be abolished. Even so-called ‘peace silk’, the supposed ethical and humane alternative to silk made by gassing, steaming or boiling cocoons, is anything but peaceful.

According to Shop Like You Give a Damn:

Peace silk, also called Ahimsa (which means non-violent) or Eri silk, is commonly offered as a better and ethical alternative because the process of stifling is avoided and therefore, the moths are able to climb out of the cocoons and breed. What often is forgotten to question is the fate that awaits the adult moths.

As the farmers allow the moths to mate, the male moths are used again and again until their fertility decreases. Then, they are no longer needed - thus, they are just thrown away, left to experience a very slow death. The female moths are crushed and later examined whether they carried any diseases - if so, all their eggs are destroyed.

There are several ethical inconsistencies in peace silk production.In short, peace silk causes more animals to die when you consider the whole picture.

We will be looking into ‘peace silk’ more closely in a follow-up article, but for now, suffice to say, there are no ethical ways to produce silk, and there are many animal-free alternatives that look and feel every bit as luxurious as silk, but without being produced through the exploitation of humans and moths.

As humans we often connect more easily with our fellow mammals, with pigs and cows who look and behave much like our companion animals, our dogs and cats. But moths and their offspring are members of the animal kingdom, just like us, and while they may not have an experience of the world that we can relate to, they are just as deserving of not having their lives taken from them needlessly. We do not need to wear silk, there is no justification for luxury at the cost of lives, when there are excellent, truly ethical alternatives.

Andrew Gough is Media and Investigations Manager at Surge.

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