I agree with AL    Consumers in UK , have a choice , they can buy from sweatshops , where workers are treated like sub humans , or they can pay for quality ethically sourced goods .    No doubt they will all shout " I cant afford to pay more "    Were clothes ever as cheap as they are now ? what did people do before ? when clothese dearer ?

Trouble is, wherever we buy from, we don't know where the clothes have been made, and under what circumstances. Personally, I don't buy from Primark/Matalan and suchlike. However, a lot of the higher end sellers also use these sweatshops.

How can one tell whether a garment is ethically sourced?

Moreover, even if a person buys from a high street store which uses sweat-shop labour, how can they possibly know if that is the wrong thing to do? The person employed in that factory is earning money. Pathetic wages by our standards, pitiful conditions in which to work - but if they weren't working there, what else would they be doing - begging on the streets? Even worse, I think.

In an ideal world, everyone would be working in good conditions and earning fair wages.

Regrettably, this is not an ideal world.

If I knew for sure that my money was going in the right direction, I would be so happy. None of us knows, though. You can't say, "Don't shop here, or don't buy such and such" because we don't know under what circumstances that product was produced.