Dark Roots of NY's Hair Trade

I read an Interesting article "The dark roots of New York’s hair trade" by Aina Hunter, in the Village Voice, March 29-April 4, 2006.
Most of the hair for extensions, braiders and weavers comes from Eastern Europe, South Asian or Chinese women’s heads. The hair is then processed in Henan, a province south east of Beijing. Here human and labor rights groups are calling it illegal and exploitative. Henan Rebecca Hair Product company, is China’s largest hair processing operation. North America accounts for 70% of Henan Rebecca Hair Products revenue.
Ethnic hierarchy of hair- right now- South Asian hair is the most popular long, wavy, not too fine or too thick. It used to be European hair, even if it was Asian hair processed in Europe. Chinese hair is coarse so it’s at the bottom of the list of choices. It would have made sense that India be the leader but the powerful labor unions in India dissuaded hair processors from opening shop their.
According to a worker at the No 3 labor camp in Henan province-" I was forced to work as a slave, mostly making hair products for Rebecca hair products in Xuchang city..police forced me to work until 2am or 3am.., not allowing me to sleep; if I did not finish the quota they would beat me with electronic batons and or tie me and hang me up with ropes.
According to Jalil Anderlini, a reporter for the South China Morning Post, who has been investigating the Henan companies practices, found that financial institutions like ING, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche bank, HSBC and Merrill lynch were among the top shareholders of this publicly traded company.
Great Lengths International, another leading hair company, purchases temple hair from India. In the past 2 months it has bought 13 tonnes of Indian hair from the Tirupati temple. At Tirupati thousands of people voluntarily have their hair tonsured to give up their vanity to God. Tirupati is called the Vatican of India, because of its rich coffers. This hair is then transported to Tunisia to be cleaned, sorted to the shades of brown and stitched to the root ends. Tunisia is being positioned as the next Henan. Tunisia is ruled by a dictatorship tolerating no worker agitation or public discourse on human rights.
There is also a cottage industry in India of comb waste, that is collected into soft black balls. But far more desirable is the freshly cut hair of young girls, that is finer and softer than adult hair. M.Krishna Kishore of Gupta enterprises, India’s largest hair exporter says that the hair collectors who buy from villages operate with a modus operandi that he considers hazy.
On my trip to India, I saw an American woman at the airport, with the longest, blackest, curly Indian hair sweeping below her buttocks, as she proudly swished her new mane. Now I can try and imagine where the hair must have come from, and the processes it must have had to undergo before it lay adorned.