Do you care about how ethically produced your clothes are?
The clothing chain Primark is known for selling fashionable clothing at very low prices.
The BBC discovered children as young as nine were making clothes destined for Primark’s stores for a rate of 50 pence to a pound a day.
Primark say that they were unaware of the practice and sacked three contractors in India immediately when they were alerted to the use of child labour.
Ethically aware retailers
That’s not to say that all fashion brands are similar. We have a few shops on MutualPoints that offer ethically aware clothing. For instance:
Adili offer a range of fair trade produced fashion. On the issue of fair pay they use the Code of Labour Practice drafted by the Joint Initiative on Corporate Accountability and Workers’ Rights as our definition of ‘good working conditions’. You get 5% of all purchases made at Adili in cash back.
Ethical Superstore kinda do what they say on the tin. They offer all the major fairtrade and ethically sound brands, including Cafedirect, Traidcraft, Green & Blacks, Divine, Ecover and many more. They also offer 5% cashback on purchases.
What should be done to stop exploitative practices in the fashion industry? Do you buy ethically when you shop for clothing?
June 24th, 2008 at 2:05 am
Oh please. I watched the show last night. Are those people stupid or something? I mean you get reasonable quality clothes for a couple of quid. How the heck do you imagine they do it?!?!
June 24th, 2008 at 5:05 am
Whilst I don’t agree with child slavery, I will admit that ethical shopping isn’t that important to me.
With the cost of living increasing, some of us can’t afford a £40 Shirt from Burtons or branded £60 jeans £60 Trainers etc etc.
I get most of my clothes from the likes of Primark, George ,Madhouse & shoes I buy from somewhere like shoeworld, trainers I buy from soccer sports.
When there is the odd sale on at Burtons & Topman, JJ Sports but other than that I stick to as cheap as possible.
The same goes for food, I will buy a large bag of chicken breasts from icelands for a fiver, now I know that the chickens they come from haven’t been given the slipper & cocoa treatment before bed but I cannot afford to pay the earth for food.
As much as I hate slavery, people will continue to use places like Primark & George as they cannot afford to get top of the range branded gear in this day of age.
June 24th, 2008 at 6:13 am
What makes me laugh is the people out there who only buy designer clobber won’t accept that their goods are also being made like this on the cheap only they are paying a huge premium for them!!
Which is the more ethical??
Made cheap using child labour but sold cheap or made cheap using child labour and sold at a vast profit - you decide??!!