Catch the Flame: Carry the Playfair message
Monday, 24 March 2008 09:57
As the Olympic torch relay to Beijing gets
underway, the Playfair 08 campaign launches its own electronic
torch relay: Catch the Flame. The relay highlights the need
for the Olympics movement to stamp out abuses of labour standards in
workplaces making Olympics goods. By Catching the Flame supporters can
join others in calling on the International Olympics Committee to take
action. The Catch the Flame relay, launched on 19th March in Amsterdam, has now
reached the UK. We need you to help us carry it all the way to Beijing.
Catch the Flame is the first in a series of actions organised by the Play Fair 2008 coalition in the run up to the Olympic Games in Beijing. Play Fair 2008 has been in contact with the International Olympic Committee (IOC)on several occasions since 2003, most recently since Play Fair investigators uncovered a series of gross violations of workers’ rights in four Chinese factories making products under license to the Beijing Olympics in 2008. (Read or download the report at www.playfair2008.org). Although the IOC have now started discussions with Play Fair,they have taken no real action so far towards addressing the very real problems of labour rights abuses in Olympics supply chains.
"By joining this alternative torch relay, people around the world can send a clear message that for the Olympics to really be fair, working conditions for those who produce Olympic goods have to be fair as well," said Esther de Haan, coordinator of the Clean Clothes Campaign, one of the organizations coordinating the Play Fair campaign.
Visitors to the “Catch the Flame” website are able to show their support for the Play Fair campaign’s objectives for fair labour standards in Olympics production. With the 2008 Olympics being held in China, international attention has focused on a range of human rights issues in China and related concerns such as press freedom. While Play Fair’s work has documented serious violations in Olympics production inside China, the problem is not limited to China, and previous Play Fair studies have documented workers’ rights violations in sports merchandise production in a range of other countries.
