Corporate CSR Responses to Homework and Child Labour in the Indian and Pakistan Leather Sector

In this chapter, we extend the existing analysis of global production networks by applying a feminist analysis to the relationship between production and social reproduction about homework. We discuss two distinct CSR responses to homework in the production network. One response is rejection: the firm rejects homework either through “cutting and running” or banning homework, resulting in homeworkers losing their work and income. The second type of response is tolerance, where the corporation accepts homeworkers’ presence in the production network without making any improvements to working conditions. We analyse reports of child labour associated with homework, and propose that gender-blind CSR responses are inadequate in addressing both homeworkers’ poor labour conditions and child labour