News Brief

London Fashion Week opens today facing accusations that garment workers are paid poverty wages producing clothing for some of Britain’s largest retailers.

With the week starting on the first UN Day of Social Justice, a charity warned that exploitation haunts the event.

War on Want has campaigned against systemic abuse of overseas garment workers, toiling marathon hours, turning out fashion for British stores for less than a living wage – enough for food, housing and healthcare.

In December its research showed that amid rising food and fuel prices Bangladeshi employees, making fashion for Primark, Tesco and Asda for as little as seven pence an hour, are in deeper poverty than two years earlier.

In March this year a BBC investigation found migrant workers in the English northern city of Manchester toiling 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for £3 an hour, well below the adult minimum wage of £5.73.

In March last year the UK newspaper the Guardian revealed Indian workers, producing clothing for Gap’s upmarket chain Banana Republic, received well under a living wage for 70 hours a week.

Simon McRae, the charity’s senior campaigns officer, said: “London Fashion Week promotes itself as a great ambassador for British industry. But the trend which is always in vogue is exploitation of workers. If ministers want the industry to be a positive advertisement for the UK, they must introduce regulation to halt this abuse.”