Why do I do the things I do?

I started watching a documentary on Netflix the other night. You know, one of those late night I'm sleepy but not quite ready to go to bed yet nights where a good, not so fast paced documentary will push you over the edge from consciousness into dreamland? The documentary was about the use of the "F" bomb, that four letter word that is by many standards considered to be the end all be all of swearing. Amid a huge variety of flowery commentary on the use of the word, including my personal favorite of Sam Donaldson saying "of course I've used it and i'm proud to say that I have", was another tidbit of wisdom. A commentator, whose name I did not pay enough attention to remember said something to the effect of "there was a time when the use of the word was considered the purview of lower uneducated classes, and not something a gentleman would say. Especially in the presence of woman and children." Furthermore he lamented the passing of such times. This reminds me of many a conversation in my own household where my husband reminds me of the very sentiment of the [[name I cannot recall]] commentator, when I use the "F" bomb. Maybe I'm of a lower class and uneducated, or maybe I'm a gentleman, but sometimes - and I will cautiously agree publicly with my husband (ARGH! that is painful!) that infrequent use is best for dramatic effect - sometimes, just sometimes you need to use very strong and potentially offensive language and tone.

With fair warning I caution you that today is one of those days and that if you read further you will be subjected to language and tone that is offensive, depending of course on your perspective. So in the non-abbreviated parlance of the, dare I say, information age...

What the Fuck?

As you no doubt recall last week I posted a letter from Steve Cibor of Tamarian that was in rebuttal to a blog post that spoke somewhat unfavorably of Tamarian and also Mr. Cibor. I posted this cautiously (and with the warning that it was and/or had become a pissing match between the two aforementioned parties) because I was asked by Ryan Higgins of Tamarian to do this, thus allowing a public forum in which they could respond.

Now to be honest I have not always treated Tamarian kindly in my blog posts, and to a small degree I was doing this favor if you will, because I wanted to make some amends. This was my first mistake. (though some could argue starting The Ruggist was the first, but I digress....) My second was posting the response without the usual, how does one say, irreverent commentary, you my dear readers, have come to expect.

Strange Bedfellows...

I believe that I was contacted to post their, err, rebuttal (I am making air quotes with my hands at the moment) because of the credibility of The Ruggist, that is to say, my personal credibility. For you see, credibility, or rather Tamarian's spurious at best credibility as it pertains to the use of child labour is what started this whole, as I'm now branding it, "The Tamarian Affair". They contacted me so that I would post their response, in essence lending them credibility which they so eagerly sought to borrow. Apparently this was not good enough. It is said you have to lay in the bed you make, but to continue a rather bad pun, I will not take it laying down (no comments!)!

For you see on the very same day I graciously posted Mr. Cibor's response, a Tamarian blog appeared miraculously on Wordpress. Its extensive (note eye roll) content can be found here! We, as educated people, can only assume that the powers at be at Tamarian felt The Ruggist had not given them a fair shake. Well boo-fucking-whoo!

What The Ruggist REALLY thinks!

To be frank, I was not overly impressed by Mr. Cibor's response to Ms. Del Vecchio's blog. Amid the layers of baffling them with bullshit links and spurious out of date information Mr. Cibor presents in his supposed defense, he remains contemptuously dismissive (as I am being now of Tamarian) of her concerns and refers to her in a most demeaning manner. At one point in the myriad of information, he does not even use the correct form of your or as he should have used, you're. But these are minor points distracting from what is at the root of my anger and displeasure as I write today.

I provided restrained commentary on "The Tamarian Affair" because I wanted to let you the consumer of internet drivel (this is presumably what Mr. Cibor thinks of the internet blogosphere as it were), decide for yourself whether or not Tamarian's stance on child labour is adequate. Clearly I was supposed to  have (from their perspective) lauded praise upon them for their efforts. Well ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I am here to tell you with one hundred percent (100%) certainty, no praise is warranted on my part, and moreover from the eyes of the consumer, there is an appearance of indifference if not complicity to the issue of child labour.

Now of course  I have never seen a Tamarian carpet in production so I do not personally know if they use child labour. I've talked at length with Mr. Cibor, Mr. Higgins, and Mr. Ned Baker (who has been and perhaps will still remain a good friend of mine) and I do believe they are well intentioned, and do care for the people of Nepal, and furthermore would not condone the use of child labour. I do however believe they lack any degree of credibility when speaking to the issue thereof. And that is why this post is here, so that The Ruggist can distance himself from the foolish bed he made.

Mr. Cibor's response has an almost World War II era sounding defense of his association with TLC. To paraphrase "We don't know who else TLC does business with and we didn't ask. It's not our business." Well this has to be the most naive business decision since I decided to make carpets in North America. If I wanted to certify my carpets were free of child labour (and I do want to do that. That's right I'm talking to you GoodWeave. Can we get on that?) I would associate myself with an organization that has no fewer than seventy-five (75) participating importers as opposed to what we can gather is one (1). Which has more credibility, or for that matter, the appearance of more credibility? Here's a clue: It's not the organization with one (1).

Furthermore, and this for the record is what really created a high degree of lividity on my part, the newly coined Tamarian blog, which by association with "The Tamarian Affair" is connected, if only loosly and perhaps only in my own mind, to The Ruggist, lacks any credibility, and thusly drags my good name through the muck. If there is going to be any muck on me it is going to be of my own doing! Allow me to explain. I've been writing The Ruggist for going on three (3) years this summer. In that time I have created fifty-three (53) posts, viewed by 3,521 absolutely unique visitors in sixty-six (66) countries, who have managed to leave a grand total of fifty-nine (59) comments. That averages 1.11 comments per post, or  comments from 1.67% of my readership.

With that I present what is surely the second miraculous event of "The Tamarian Affair". (Disclaimer: I am no internet or blogging expert, and there is a degree of hyperbole in my tone) Tamarian has achieved with one singular post an estimated readership, based on number of comments, of 838 for one post. I can assure you with 100% certainty that the readership of their blog is not that high, nor given the fact the excessively glowing praise they so eagerly sought from me is present in all but one of their posted comments, that their readership is unbiased. In fact, I will go so far as to say their readership is completely biased. Does Tamarian think people reading unqualified content on the internet are that dumb? Here's a clue: I don't know if they do or not, but I do know they don't care.

Both my displeasure and the displeasure of Ms. Del Vecchio are caused by Tamarian's complete lack of credibility on the issue of child labour and for their contempt of not only her and me, but most importantly the consumer, whomever they may be. Moreover, I feel their attempt to use the credibility of The Ruggist to make their hopelessly inadequate explanation of their stance on child labour somehow valid, has tarnished my reputation and credibility. Obviously I posted that and this post of my own free will, and I walked right into the muck they were creating. It was my mistake and my mistake alone. I don't know that I can extricate myself from the messy bed I've created, but I can sure as hell try.

"I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden" - Dolly Parton

Last time I said I may have written myself into never working for another rug company again. This time it may be the case that I have written myself out of a few friendships. If the other parties feel that way, so be it, but let me explain. I don't always agree with my friends. In fact, I'd rather not. If I wanted to sit around having smoke blown up my backside, I'm led to believe from my reading of Dan Savage, that there is an internet dating site somewhere that can provide that service. But I don't want that. No! I want spirited and lively debate and discussion. I want to not always agree, I want to grow and learn, and at the end of the day I want to sit down and have a drink with my dear friends. Sometimes they are right, sometimes I'm right, and more often than not we both are depending on your perspective.

Mr. Higgins knew what he was getting himself into when he contacted me to post Mr. Cibor's response, so I was most displeased by a follow up email I received from him in which he states: "It actually was fair what you wrote, considering your immediate the one-degree of separation to your bosses, right Michael?" I'm not certain whom he thinks my bosses are, or who he is to question my independence. Last time I looked I worked for myself. But if by chance he is referring to some of my clients, whom may happen to share equally as strong views supporting GoodWeave, I would like to ask Tamarian this: "How high do you jump when your best clients come calling?" Given the approach of your "blog", your response to Ms. Del Vecchio, and your generally dismissive response to valid concerns regarding child labour, I gather not very high. What great service[!] I on the other hand have a propensity to jump.

Let's not be naive shall we? We all have vested interests and conflicts. Of course I take into account my business relationships when I write this blog, I'd be foolish not to. So as "The Ruggler" (@theruggler) on Twitter said when I criticized his approach as puerile, you can always "unfollow" me if you don't like what I have to say. By the way, I told "The Ruggler" that though I may not agree with his methods, I do love his madness.

The End

Thank you for reading and as always I hope you enjoy. I apologize for this slight detour from our usual, but think it was worth it. Knowing more about the mindset of an "inimitable rug industry stalwart" as Cover Magazine has called me in preview of their forthcoming feature on me and Red Spruce, is always a good thing.

The Ruggist takes great pride in what he does and though my methods may occasionally offend, our mutual net gain is a better understanding of the world we call rugs. Thank you, and good day!


P.S. In an open letter to those who may support with bias (as I unashamedly do). Please note that if you think someone is making a false statement about your cause, or organization, or what have you, take care to know the difference between libel and slander. You will sound more, dare I say, credible.

Whose Agenda is it anyway?

Normally this is where I would start off writing a somewhat witty and obscurely connected introduction to the entry you are about to read, but today is no normal day. Today is Sunday. The day of rest in many faith and late night boozing traditions. And while I am neither nursing a hangover nor attending church I am resting, resting my head that is oh so tired and weary after inadvertently wading into a, and you'll pardon the crude expression, pissing match between an Interior Designer and Tamarian. So without belabouring the intro, pull on your Wellington's boys (and girls) and let's try and sort this mess out shall we?

In the beginning...

On Tuesday April 5, 2011 at 19:31 ADT The Ruggist posted a link (to another blog) on his facebook page. (Yes that is right, The Ruggist has a facebook page. You should "like" it as they say. The Ruggist on Facebook) This also automatically updates the Twitter feed of @theruggist which you can follow by clicking here! This referenced blog, as we will soon find out, contains some rather juicy tidbits of potentially libelous internet "writing", but before we get to that, a few more details. Later that evening at about 20:30 I received a text message from someone at Tamarian stating that, and I paraphrase: "it was uncool to post the link", though "uncool" is a direct quote. Furthermore I was asked to remove the link. I ignored the request. About thirty (30) minutes later I received another text which basically said "meh what the hell leave it up it is the information age". From the use of the term "information age" we can now assume Al Gore is working at Tamarian, that has my mobile phone number, and is somehow qualified to judge me as cool or otherwise, but I digress. So that was that.

On the first day...

On Wednesday April 6,  2011 I was off bright and early to install a recently completed Red Spruce carpet for a show at a local art gallery. My mobile phone rang, and as I almost always do when the number isn't in my address book, I ignored the call. Moments later: Voicemail. It was Ryan Higgins of Tamarian asking me to call him back. "What in rug hell does he want?" I thought to myself, and truthfully the only reason I promptly returned his call (normally I would wait until I was back at the studio) was that he said he was calling from the "beige, pale blue, and neutral rug company". At least he knows how to play to my sense of humour, warped as it may be. The short and publishable summary of our call is this:

Ryan: Would you publish a rebuttal to the blog entry you linked to?
Me: If it is interesting and doesn't turn the situation into a pissing match...

On the fifth day...

So here we are on Sunday April 10, 2011 at 09:13 ADT and I am sitting drinking a coffee at my recently moved (into an awesome sunny location) desk, basking in the afterglow of the awesome Pixies concert I attended last night, debating what to do and whether or not I find this entire subject interesting enough to write about. I'm tempted to write "And I don't" and end the entry here and now, but fortunately and knowingly the people at Tamarian know The Ruggist has never written anything so succinct in his public writing history, and thus the post must go on!

So what was that other blog anyway?

Shannon Del Vecchio is an Interior Designer in California who writes a blog about design "inspiration, encouragement, and love". On March 31, 2011 she posted this entry, which I encourage you to read completely for the appropriate background on this situation, but of which I will summarize for you:

1) She or rather her client wanted a rug presumably from Tamarian.
2) She wants her rug to be made without child labour.
3) She is not convinced that Tamarian's "no child labour" certification is adequate.
4) She is convinced GoodWeave's certification is adequate.
5) She is calling Tamarian into question for potential child labour infractions.
6) She thinks Tamarian is "greenwashing" their products.
7) She makes an empty promise to remove her post, assuming Tamarian can meet her definition of legitimate.

Now in case by some divine act Tamarian has been able to satisfy her legitimacy requirement I have taken the liberty of archiving her blog post for perpetual reference. It can be found here. Obviously this post really got Tamarian's goat, and rightly so. In fact, it got is so much that, we will now return to Ryan Higgins' request for me to publish a rebuttal.

Friday April 8, 2011 23:33 ADT

An email from Mr. Higgins arrived in the Gossip inbox of The Ruggist. It contains Tamarian's official response to Ms. Del Vecchio's blog post, as drafted by Steve Cibor. It is a lengthy (though not as lengthy as my writing) three (3) page document that makes reference to several outside links on Google Documents in which Mr. Cibor makes annotated remarks clarifying his side of the story. I will now invite you to read his response here, but before I do can I mention one thing? Never send an easily editable document (such as a word file) to a third party. Always send a PDF. At least make fraudulent editing difficult, but for the record and to clarify, I have not edited the word document I was sent.

I will now summarize Mr. Cibor's rebuttal and position:

1) He says she misquotes or fabricates his reponses to her, and moreover has a degree of documentation to support his position.
2) He passionately defends his and Tamarian's position, again with a degree of documentation.
3) He is using a third party verification to ensure that there is no child labor.
4) He feels he has adequately, and now more than adequately, addressed Ms. Del Vecchio's concerns.

And now the moment we've all been waiting for....

What does The Ruggist think?

It's all buncombe! Plain and Simple. I was asked to wade into this presumably because of my perceived "authority" on rug industry critique, but make no mistake, The Ruggist will not play the part of the fool for anyone. I stated to Mr. Higgins that I would publish Tamarian's rebuttal if it was interesting, addressed the issues at hand, and did not become a pissing match, and while it is most interesting and does address the issues at hand (depending on your perspective) it has indeed become a pissing match. I have chosen to publish it though in the interest of interest. It does make for a good read and a good way to avoid working on Monday.

Ms. Del Vecchio is clearly a displeased (for whatever reason) consumer, and Tamarian (or Stark whom Mr. Cibor has now outed as user of Tamarian's private labeling service) is clearly not satisfying her, if that is indeed possible in this case. At the end of the day she is not a Tamarian (or Stark) customer in the sense that they don't offer what she is looking for. Both parties should realize that and put this situation behind them, and not go on at length interjecting irrelevant facts into the argument.

I encourage everyone to read both Ms. Del Vecchio's blog and Mr. Cibor's response, annotations, and linked documents, and to draw your own conclusions. I have.

Disclosure!

My position on child labour has been very clearly stated in the past: I support GoodWeave and feel they provide verifiable independent third party verification there is no child labour used. Why a company would choose not to go with an established NGO such as GoodWeave is beyond my ability to reason.

Furthermore, I find the timing of the appearance of "The Ruggler" on Twitter (@theruggler), and subsequent interactions which may or may not pertain to this very subject, the specific content of which I will keep confidential as asked, to be most suspect. To "The Ruggler" whomever you are (I don't know but do have my suspicions); I for one and on the record find the anonymous posting and commenting to be most puerile. I may have written my way into never working for another rug company again, but at least my opinions are known and when people are interacting with me they know what to expect.

Oh the twisted web we weave!! (Moan!)

Tamarian's Official Response to Shannon Del Vecchio

This letter is published here solely as a courtesy to Tamarian and for reference by The Ruggist. Its inclusion here is not an endorsement, tacit, explicate, or otherwise of its content, tone, or opinions. Moreover, The Ruggist reserves the right to remove the letter without cause or notice at his sole discretion.

Also, please note their may be unintended errors in translating the file from word to HTML and I apologize to my readers and to Tamarian in advance.

The open letter...

Blog

n.) Short for Web log, a blog is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.

Preface: The Accusation

My name is Steve Cibor; I am the owner and founder of Tamarian Carpets. I am addressing you in response to a blog that was posted last week by a decorator named Shannon Del Vecchio, where she offers her opinion on my company, and a company in Nepal that we have contracted since January 2010 called Tibetian Rugs Labour Certification Private Limited (TLC). In the post, she made up quotes from me and makes a plug for Goodweave. Almost all of the information in her blog excluding her own opinion is incorrect or simply fabricated. Since I have never blogged or responded to a blog I thought I should first research what it meant (above).

See shannon's blog and my response (note: my responses to her are indented and in blue italics)

I would like to make one thing very clear, we have never used, nor will we ever tolerate any form of child labor in the production of our rugs. We have never been accused of using child labor, nor has anyone ever seen a child working in the production of our rugs. In Nepal, Tamarian Carpets has and always will be devoted to helping the people of the country and especially the communities involved in the carpet productionî. I used quotations because this is exactly what Nina Smith, the executive director of Goodweave USA, said in an e-mail dated 11-12-2009.

I will inform you to the best of my ability about TLC, and how and why TLC was formed.It all started with a memorandum dated 9-30-2009 that I received from the Oriental Rug Importers Association. This would involve leading rug importers into the USA, Rug Mark India, Goodweave (and staff), a professor of economics, 13 US Senators (and staff), The Department of Labor (and staff), The Secretary of Labor, The Speaker of the House, The Vice President,  and The President. And now it also involves Shannon Del Vecchio, a concerned decorator from San Francisco.

1. Child Labor in Nepal 

Regarding the memorandum dated 9-30-2009: The contents were in regards to the 9-11-2009 publication of the proposal by the U.S. Department of Labor to include carpets made in Nepal on its list of products that would be effectively barred from the government procurement due to the belief they may have been made with forced or indentured child labor. This began with the Executive Order that was issued in 1999, under Executive Order 13126. It also involved a reference to a 9-25-2009 letter to President Obama, which was signed by 13 Senators. I also received two letters from the Secretary of Labor, one to the Honorable Nancy Pelosi, and the other to Vice President Biden. These reference a report titled The Department of Laborís List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor. This all hit me pretty hard; I started doing all sorts of research, calling all the different offices involved to find out more information.

I questioned why have I never seen child labor in the rug industry in Nepal after dozens of visits spread over fifteen years? Am I missing something?

While I have been involved in many projects in Nepal over the years involving hospitals, schools, orphanages, and a handful of others--I felt that I needed to play a bigger role in the targeted area of child labor. I had contacted many of my fellow importers to discuss, and some of us filed our response to the office of Child Labor which was due by 10-12-2009, outlining our first hand experiences.

I then contacted the only organization that I could find which dealt with the issue of child labor in Nepal, Rugmark. I wanted to learn as much as I could about Rugmark which involved many emails, meetings and phone calls. I should point out that they were in the process of rebranding to Goodweave USA. I concurrently received information that they may be doing this illegally.  Here is one of the two documents that led to my concern: (Rugmark letter).

From what I saw, this was an organization that covered it all, including but not limited to: the inspection of looms for child labor, certification, schools, and environmental/social programs. At the time, we talked about membership. However, I felt that because I was already involved in many projects in Nepal, I only wanted to participate in their certification process. The last thing I wanted was to switch money I was sending to Nepal for Tamarian-sponsored projects to Goodweave-sponsored projects. Unfortunately, they were not able to allow me to participate in just the certification process; it was all or nothing, a stale mate. Since then, we continued to meet and discuss the possibilities.

During this time, Nina introduced me a person doing onsite research in Nepal in regards to child labor, a man in the trenches. We spoke a few times about on the topic and I gathered as much info as he was willing to give. Since his research would end up being submitted to the US Government he had to be careful with what he said. Fine, I just wanted to be pointed in the right direction. Even though I chose
not to work with Rugmark/Goodweave, I still needed to see how I could ensure that there was absolutely no child labor being used in the production of our rugs. He suggested that a third party company
should be inspecting the factories, and we both agreed that the third party should not be connected to an NGO.

2. Full Disclosure Regarding the Conception of TLC

Was I involved with the conception of TLC? Yes.

Was I the first importer to sign up and fill out an application and to contract their services? Yes.
Did I have a pre-determined agenda when I went to Nepal to find a third party inspector? Yes.
Was my goal to do something that would help put an end to child labor in Nepal? Yes.
Did I want to prove to my clients that I am doing everything in my power to show to them we

do not use child labor? Yes.

Did I feel that our industry needed other options for a no-child-labor certification? Yes.
Did I think that that it may cause waves with some NGOís or individuals?  NO.

I thought that doing anything was better than doing nothing at all. I thought doing something to help put an end to child labor was a good thing.

The conception of TLC took place while I was in Nepal during late November of 2009. I met with many NGO's, exporters, manufactures and suppliers to discuss child labor. A few of us gathered many times, with the goal to find a local businessperson who might be well suited to start a company whose sole purpose was to check factories--a true third party with no other agenda than to check looms and factories for evidence of child labor. It was expected they would charge a fee for their service. The name at the top of the list was Tenzing Wangdu, a young Tibetan man who is well connected in Nepal. He has over ten years of experience in the manufacturing of Tibetan Rugs as an overseas production manager. He left in 2007 to go onto other ventures, and has since worked for the United States Embassy in Nepal (for over two years), opened a cafe, and works with Tibetan youth (18-25) to find employment. We approached him and told him about our ideas. We were excited to hear he would love the opportunity to not only help wipe out any form of child labor, but to start another business that would give him a venue to put more local Tibetans to work.

At the time we felt his mission should be:

-Randomly inspect factories for child labor for children under the age of 16.

-Ensure there was no forced or bonded labor.

-Ensure workers were being paid a fair wage, and had safe and health working conditions.

-Each factory or location should be inspected at least once a month and report any violation to the manufacture as well as the importer.

-Remove the child from the factory and try to get them to go to school.

-Hold the manufacture and importer responsible and charge a hefty fine and have the rug destroyed.

-To have no bias or connection to any NGO or non-profit and to charge basic fee for inspections just like a building inspector.

Tenzing went to work on this. He filed for papers with the Government of Nepal Ministry of Finance inland Revenue Department and with the Ministry of Industries Office of the Company of Registrar. Any of us that has had any workings with the Nepal Government knows its not like it is here, you can't just go down and file a form and become a legitimate company like you can in the U.S., this process took him until January 2010. But he did it, and we signed a contract, paid our fees and he started inspecting each and every loom. For the record no evidence child labor has yet to been found.

3. Responding to Shannon's Concerns

Current facts: Nepal has a total of eight inspectors for child labor and two of them are designated to the carpet industry, Rugmark has three and we just added one more. That's a good thing, right?

Is there more work to be done in Nepal? Yes, and the ball is in motion. We are moving in the right direction.

Americans want to make sure that when we buy a product that it is made responsibly. We are known for aggressively voicing our American opinions, morals and ideals on other countries--mostly Third World (which Nepal is). If we expect other countries to conform to our standards, we should also let them go after the American Dream. You should be able to start a company for the right reasons and not be cut off at the knees when you are in the start-up phase.

Shannon the decorator, you feel that because TLC is a young company that has no web site or brochures it is not a reputable company. I would like to inform you that when I started working with the manufacturer of my rugs over ten years ago, he was just starting a business. He had no clients, and little experience. He was formerly a monk, and a thangka painter.  I liked him, and took his word that he was going to do what he said he would (just the same way TLC started). Last year he received an award from the government of Nepal and was the third largest single manufacture in the country. He still has no web site, no brochure, no other client but Tamarian. Would you say the same of him? Would you have written the same about him ten years ago when he was starting out? Would you have written the same of me because I was using this no name manufacturer?

When I spoke with you on the phone you requested documentation from my company about another independent company (located in the Third World on the opposite side of the globe). You said if you did not have it in 24 hours you would post a negative blog.  You also sent me an e-mail dated 3-30-11, which I responded to the same day, and then with the proof you requested within 48 hours.  Here it is again in case you misplaced it. Sorry for the delay, Nepal had power outages. Its very common there. After I responded to your request, you responded with an odd email.  You stated I appreciate you sending over these documents but they still don't answer my primary question, which is this: What exactly does the TLC label mean for consumers?

It's odd only because you never asked me in our original conversations, and after reading your e-mail, I was told about your blog. I read it, and there you questioned us to the world.  But you were not concerned with my response. Also, at no time did you disclose the address of your blog. So here it is, the answer you were looking for:

The label means that this rug has been manufactured in a factory/loom that is inspected for child labor. And it certifies that the rug was made CHILD LABOR FREE.

Conclusion *For Shannon* but Open to the Public:

If you would like detailed answers to the questions from your second e-mail, see my answers. You also might like to revisit our email chain. Since I cannot publicly respond to your blog on your site *um, convenient*, you can see my remarks which address the erroneous information you posted.

I want to thank anybody that has taken the time to read this as I felt it was necessary to set the record straight. I also wanted to share with everyone a report funded by the United States Department of Labor, Independent Final Evaluation of the Brighter Futures Program Combating Child Labor Through Education in Nepal, Phase II. Note: Page 9 states ìSectors experiencing the greatest reduction are the carpet factories (child labor is said to be minimal).

Respectfully,

Steven T. Cibor