Pakistan supplies around 70% of the world’s soccer balls, with an estimated 44,000 men and women stitchers in the Sialkot region of Pakistan involved in the production of 35 million soccer balls every year. The industry has been criticized for low pay, poor working conditions and the widespread illegal employment of children who are forced into work because adult wages are often too low to support a family. International campaigns in the 1990s saw some success with gradually moving production away from home-based stitchers to independently monitored stitching centers and providing constructive alternatives for children such as basic education and skills training. However, low pay and a lack of social benefits remain issues for workers in the industry.
Factory workers produce the internal bladders and also laminate, cut and print the 32 panels that make up each soccer ball. The sets are then delivered to dozens of small stitching centers in villages around Sialkot. The balls are stitched together then returned to the factory for washing, quality control and packing. The stitching centers employ up to 15 workers who stitch a maximum of three balls a day, each one requiring around 650 stitches. The centers are operated by the main factories or by subcontractors and are segregated by gender to comply with religious and cultural values.
Each of our manufacturers are large-scale producers employing approximately 2,500 factory workers and contract stitchers. Production is split 50/50 between sports clothing and sports balls – mainly soccer balls but also rugby balls, volleyballs, rugby balls, and more – that are assembled at more than 50 stitching centers. Our manufacturers produce sports balls that are certified to be Fair Trade and thus free from child-labor.
