by Guest Fri 16 Nov 2012 - 19:10
Ikea Sold Products Made With Forced Labor in Former East Germany, Report Finds
By JULIA WERDIGIER
LONDON — Ikea, the Swedish furniture chain, knowingly benefited from forced labor in the former East Germany to manufacture some of its products in the 1980’s, an investigation revealed Friday.
A report by the auditors Ernst & Young concluded that political and criminal prisoners in the former East Germany were involved in making components of Ikea furniture and that some Ikea employees knew about it. Ikea had commissioned the report in May following allegations that the company knowingly used forced labor between 25 and 30 years ago.
Ikea said Friday it was sorry about the incidents and pledged to donate funds to research projects on forced labor in the former German Democratic Republic.
“We deeply regret that this could happen,” Jeanette Skjelmose, sustainability manager at Ikea, said in a statement. “The use of political prisoners in production has never been acceptable to the Ikea Group. At the time, we didn’t have today’s well-developed control system and obviously didn’t do enough to prevent such production conditions among our former G.D.R. suppliers.”