Child labor is an especially troubling aspect of sweatshop production.
According to the UN s International Labor Organization, there are at least 250 million working children between five and 14 in developing countries. About half of them work full time and tens of millions are exposed to hazardous and abusive conditions. Headquartered in New York City, SAI takes a consensus-building approach to standards development that brings together experts from the human rights, trade union, government and business sectors. The first of SAI s social accountability systems to be fully operational is SA8000. SAI accredits organizations to conduct independent monitoring to certify compliance by individual production facilities to SA8000.