There was a great film on Newsnight last night highlighting the child labour abuse in Uzbekistan where during the autumn the schools all close and children are sent off to pick the cotton. They don’t have any choice in the matter, and they sleep away from their homes.
This cotton is then sold by the Uzbek government to the cotton trade who process it, largely in Asia, before it becomes cotton goods that turn up in many UK high street stores.
Why are some clothes so cheap? Because the cotton is picked by children for a pittance.
It’s really down to us in the West to take an interest in where the materials we buy come from. Fairtrade cotton?