Children protest over Primark 'sweatshops'
(5 May 2009)

Children, including a disabled boy in a wheelchair, protested on Saturday (2 May) at British fashion retailer Primark's huge new two-floor store in South London over poverty wages for Asian garment workers. In December the charity War on Want's research, Fashion Victims II, cited workers producing clothes for Primark in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka earning as little as 7p an hour for up to 80-hour weeks. Last month Primark's parent company, Associated British Foods, announced a 10 per cent rise in profits to £122 million for the retailer during the last six months, after £233 million profits during the 12 months ending in September.

The children joined activists, including teenagers, from the fair trade fashion company People Tree and anti-poverty charity War on Want, handing leaflets to shoppers outside the Tooting shop in south London, calling for a living wage and an end to the exploitation of garment workers making clothes for Primark.

They demanded British government regulation to stop the retailer abusing its suppliers. People Tree and War on Want sent a letter criticising Primark to the retailer's new ethical trading director, Katherine Kirk. The protestors included six-year-old Samuel Bartley, a wheelchair user, with his sister Thalia, aged five, and 10-year-old brother Charis - all former Primark shoppers. Their parents, Jonathan, 37, and Lucy, 40, brought them from their nearby home.

Safia Minney, chief executive officer of People Tree and founder of World Fair Trade Day, who also lives in Tooting, led the protest with her 12-year-old daughter Natalie. Both met sweatshop workers during a recent trip to Bangladesh, where they also saw rural women who make People Tree fair trade clothes. Safia's son Jerome, 16, also joined them. Three local 15-year-old girls - Ella Blake, Flo Gray and Gaby Connell - planned to look round the store, but joined the protest after learning about the exploitation.

Bangladeshi workers earn just 7p an hour

In December the charity War on Want's research, Fashion Victims II, cited workers producing clothes for Primark in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka earning as little as 7p an hour for up to 80-hour weeks. Some employees received only the minimum wage, £13.97 (1663 taka) a month, far less than the £44.82 (5333 taka) needed for nutritious food, clean water, shelter, clothes, education, health care and transport. The average workers' pay, £19.16 (2280 taka) a month, represented less than half a living wage.

Amid food and fuel inflation, employees' living standards in Bagladesh has fallen since they were interviewed two years earlier for the charity's research. The vast majority of employees lived in small, crowded shacks, many of which lack plumbing and adequate washing facilities. Though forced overtime is illegal in Bangladesh, employees said they were made to toil extra hours, often unpaid. Workers complained that in the fast fashion rush to produce the latest styles, many of them suffered verbal and physical abuse as they struggled to meet unrealistic targets. Yet the Dhaka workers said none of their factories was unionised.

India's children work in slum workshops

In January, the BBC claimed migrant workers toiled up to 12 hours a day for £3.50 an hour, less than the minimum wage, making Primark clothes in Manchester. Last June the BBC television programme Panorama showed some of India's poorest people, including children, working long, gruelling hours for poverty pay on Primark clothes in slum workshops and refugee camps.

Ms Minney said: 'Despite Primark's huge increase in profits, workers' living conditions are worse than two years ago and they are having to deal with a huge increase in food costs. Fast, cheap fashion has flooded the UK high street. But garment workers are unable to fill their stomachs, however many bags of fast fashion we buy. That's the true cost of fast fashion. Consumers can be part of the solution in supporting better practice and fair trade fashion.'

Simon McRae, senior campaigns officer at War on Want, said: 'Primark is raking in profits and expanding with new stores like Tooting by selling clothes which are so cheap because the people who produce them earn so little. The retailer has failed for years to match its claim to pay a living wage with real action. Now the British government must bring in effective regulation to halt this abuse.'