Do you shop in Primark? It seems lots of people do.
Vast stores on every “High Street”, huge ranges, cheap prices, latest fashion trends… the attractions for the UK shopper go on and on.

As I sat, relaxing in the sun in my home town of Southport yesterday, it seemed that at least one in ten people under 30 years of age had one or more Primark brown paper carrier bags in their hands.
Cheap, throw-away fashion…but at what price?

In the past, Primark has axed three suppliers in India for passing work to unapproved sub-contractors who were using child labour.

Children working at home were embroidering dresses and other items sold in the fashion chain’s 200 plus stores in Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Belgium.

The revelations were highly embarrassing for a company that has always claimed it is possible to sell T-shirts for as little as £2 without compromising its ethics.

The company were alerted to the use of child labour in southern India by a BBC Panorama investigation screened a while back.

The documentary shows children as young as 11 being paid just 60p a day by factory bosses to work in a refugee camp.

Panorama programme makers found children surrounded by Primark clothes, their labels giving away their destination – the UK and Ireland.

The BBC Panorama team carried out a six-month undercover investigation at one of Primark’s major suppliers, Fab and Fabric.
They discovered the Indian company were sub-contracting middlemen who employed children at Bhavanisagar refugee camp.

A Primark spokesman said: “Primark is an ethical organisation and takes its responsibilities seriously.
“It’s an absolute outrage for anyone to suggest otherwise.
“The BBC came to us with very serious allegations about the conduct of a small number of factories which we investigated thoroughly.
“What we found left us with no option but to drop those factories.”

Thought-provoking stuff indeed.
So, the next time you think about buying something from your “High Street” store, maybe stop for a second and think about the person who made the item. Have the products been Fairly Traded?
If things are so cheap, how much do you think they got paid? What conditions were they working in? How old were they?

The FAIR Trade Store  can’t compete with the big “High Street” chains… but, as I keep saying to our wonderful customers, there is definitely more love involved!

So, why not shop ethically in this Fair Trade online store, confident that together, “we can help to make a difference”.

You can read the original article in Mail Online here.

“If this Blog post has provoked you in any way, why not leave your comments below? I’d love to hear from you” – Paul.