The Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board is tightening up its purchasing policy when it comes to sweatshops.
Under the new rules, senior administration will oversee buying items like sports uniforms to ensure they're not coming from a supplier that uses sweatshop labour.
Catholic board student trustees Amanda Ieraci and Adam McDonald are applauding the change.
Ieraci says this is a worldwide problem.
"It's a real problem around the world. Not just in poor countries, but also countries that we don't necessarily think about. So when you have environmental exploitation you also have countries being taken advantage of for what they have, for their resources. So that involves child labour."
She says students have been calling for the change as well.
"It is something that we do consider a big concern and it involves the abuse of the people who live there because sweatshops exploit children and they're usually for the benefit of countries that have the money to spend, but they choose not to. Instead they choose to go for the cheaper route."
Catholic school board student trustees Amanda Ieraci and Adam McDonald seen on November 26, 2019 (Photo by AM800's Zander Broeckel)
McDonald says this is a big step in the right direction.
"We're definitely happy that the board is taking the initiative themselves to put this policy into place in order to prevent sweatshops from being used as vendors for our board clothing in the future."
Until now, school principals had the authority to approve any purchases, but no system was in place to make sure the items weren't produced in a sweatshop.
Suppliers will now be asked to sign a contract stating their products are sweatshop free.