International auditing company SGS has been engaged by Sri Lanka's Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF) to provide independent assurance to retail buyers that clothing sourced from the Indian Ocean island has been made under ethical conditions.

SGS is auditing companies for the 'Sri Lanka: Garments without Guilt' certification, an industry-wide label and image building scheme which JAAF launched last year.

Textile and clothing factories are being monitored and accredited to say they're free of child and forced labour, free from discrimination of any kind, and free from sweatshop conditions.

So far, around 30 factories have been certified, and the aim is to extend this to 50 companies by the end of the year, and a total of 150 by March 2008.

A list of certified factories will be hosted by SGS on its website, and reviews will be conducted on an annual basis.

The industry says its strategy is based on growing international consumer awareness of the conditions under which their clothes are made, a need to differentiate itself from its low-cost neighbours, and Sri Lanka's long-standing commitment to worker welfare.

"Garments without Guilt is not simply something we've tailored to suit the occasion," Kumar Mirchandani, chairman of JAAF's marketing committee, told just-style today.

"We've always had a platform of decent working conditions, and to us this was always a given, like quality. We never promoted what we were doing, but because we're now more ethical than anyone else we decided to raise the bar even further."

JAAF hopes Garments without Guilt will will help it stand out in a crowded international market. The US and EU accounted for 51% and 44% respectively of the country's total apparel exports in the first nine months of this year.