Fashion worker describes 'depths of hell' conditions at factories
23 August 2020, 14:16 | Updated: 23 August 2020, 14:21
Fashion worker describes 'depths of hell' conditions at factories
A caller who works in the fashion industry has described the conditions at supplier she has worked with as the "depths of hell".
Maggie in Sidcup, who has worked for "the biggest people in the high street," said she had witnessed c
She told LBC: "I've seen it in certain factories - all of the above - some of the conditions I've walked into... it's like the depths of hell.
"I wouldn't put my production into it, I wouldn't entertain it and it's just something that...in the business that we do, it just wouldn't happen.
"These factories need to be closed down, they need to be shut down and the people that are using them need to be taken out of the business."
She added that what she witnessed was many years ago and if often the extreme minority of cases, but said she still thinks that major high street fashion brands were still directly or indirectly benefiting from slave labour.
Asked about products made by Uighur Muslims detained in camps in China, she told LBC's Maajid Nawaz that she could "one million per cent" believe that large retailers were connected through the supply chain and may not even know about it.
The caller said, however, that Boohoo - which was found to be benefitting from a factory in Leicester that was paying staff just £3.50 an hour - was wrong to completely shut off its connections with the suppliers and should instead work with them to improve conditions.
"He's [Boohoo's boss] broken all protocol. The protocol is that if you have a failed audit or if things like this are found, that you work with the factory and they have a certain amount of weeks to rectify things - if not they're given warnings."
