Primark sweatshop exposed

TOILING by candlelight in a corrugated iron shack, an angel-faced girl AGED 11 sews beads on clothes -to be sold by Primark on British high streets.

She's called Mantheesh. And her Indian factory bosses paid her 60p A DAY to work from dawn to dusk at a refugee camp, churning out sequinned women's vests on the cheap.

Last year the News of the World caused a major rethink within the retail industry after exposing Gap for using contractors who employed kids near India's capital New Delhi.

But exploitation in the industy is still going on because youngsters are cheap-and small hands are more adept at intricate work.

Little Mantheesh, who fled war-torn Sri Lanka with her aunt, is just one refugee who was hoping for a better life in India.

Investigators found her sitting amid waist-high piles of Primark garments, many with labels showing they were bound for UK and Irish stores.

She said: "The beads we sew are very small and we often work late at night. The electricity is poor so we have to use candles to see.

"Sometimes we get major orders in and have to work double quick. On a good day I can make 40 rupees a day (60 pence)."

But now after a six-month undercover investigation revealed child labour being used on Primark fashions, the multi-billion chain has CANCELLED contracts worth millions with three Indian suppliers.

It has withdrawn the tops, some of which sell for just £5, from its stores saying sub-contractors had used child workers without their knowledge.

A BBC Panorama team, whose documentary will be screened tomorrow at 9pm, used hidden cameras to expose the scandal at one of Primark's major suppliers, Fab and Fabric, in the Indian textile city of Tirapur.

One local boss boasted they'd supplied more than TWO MILLION garments to Primark over the last two years.

But the British cut-price clothing chain never suspected Fab and Fabric were sub-contracting work to middlemen who employed kids at Bhavanisagar refugee camp, 36 miles from Tirapur. The poverty-stricken youngsters were forced to take on jobs at pitifully-low rates even the poorest Indians scorned. Charity War on Want yesterday called for Prime Minister Gordon Brown to get tough on British shops using child labour overseas.

But a Primark spokesman said: "Primark is an ethical organisation and takes its responsibilities seriously. It's an absolute outrage for anyone to suggest otherwise.

"The BBC came to us with very serious allegations about the conduct of a small number of factories which we investigated thoroughly. What we found left us with no option but to drop those factories."

The firm has pledged to appoint an organisation in south India "to act as its eyes and ears" and to establish a charitable foundation to help children.

But experts warn the problem is widespread and up to 115 million children remain stuck in child labour in India.

Dan McDougall is associate producer of the Panorama special Primark: On the Rack.