Charles Kernaghan, Executive Director of National Labor Committee, who exposed mistreatment in factories in Central America and China, was shocked by what he discovered in Jordan.
“These are the worst conditions I've ever seen," he said. "You have people working 48 hours straight. You have workers who were stripped of their passports, who don't have ID cards that allow them to go out on the street. If they're stopped, they can be imprisoned or deported, so they're trapped, often held under conditions of involuntary servitude."
Several factory owners in Jordan insisted that they treated their workers properly.
"Some people are always making allegations," said Karim Saifi, the owner of United Garment Manufacturing, a factory near Amman that workers criticized for long hours and wage violations.
Several foreign apparel workers said that while their factories required them to stay until midnight, the Jordanian workers were usually allowed to leave at 4 p.m.
Two large industrial zones outside Amman have geared themselves up to the American apparel market. They have attracted dozens of garment manufacturers, some with 200 workers, others with 2,000, producing clothes for JC Penney, Sears, Wal-Mart, Gap and Target.
"It would be wrong to think that problems at a few places are representative of the 102 apparel factories in my country," said Yanal Beasha, Jordan's trade representative in Washington.
Jordan's Ambassador to the United States, Karim Kawar said, "If there are any violations of our labor laws, we certainly take it seriously."
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