Workers in Bangladesh get 5p an hour. We get cheap, disposable fashion. Marisa Duffy looks at the real cost of our frenzy for throw-away fashion

What price fashion? A fetching pair of slingbacks? £6. Nice little black dress? £10. Cute wrap-around cardigan? £3. Bargain. What price fashion? Five pence an hour, 80-hour working weeks, verbal and physical abuse and 100 workers burned to death while locked inside clothing factories in Bangladesh.

This week Asda, Tesco and Primark were faced with allegations that workers in Bangladesh are being forced to work up to 80 hours a week, abused by supervisors for taking sick time and refused access to trade unions. The companies say they carry out regular audits and are doing their best to improve conditions at the factories they use overseas.

In a separate development, campaigning charity War on Want yesterday claimed that in February and March 2006, almost 100 workers were killed and many more injured when factories making clothes for British high street shops collapsed and caught fire while the workers were locked inside. It did not name the chains involved.

John Hilary, campaigns and policy director for the charity said: "The workers have confirmed that the emergency exits are often kept locked because they want to keep control over the workers, and they don't like the idea of people being free to leave."

War on Want claims to have uncovered a catalogue of human misery in factories across Bangladesh.

"We also spoke to a 13-year-old girl called Nazera, who was working in a factory earning £7 a month and worked from eight in the morning to eight in the evening. She started straight out of primary school and the most poignant thing was that she said the highlight of her day was when supervisors let them out to play at lunchtime."

It's not a simple ethical issue. Some two million people in Bangladesh are employed in thousands of factories. In the last decade the country's clothing manufacturing industry has boomed on the back of demand for cheap clothes from the UK high street and supermarkets.

Campaigners state that long hours, poverty and insanitary living conditions for factory workers are making them vulnerable to illness and disease including TB, hearing problems and skin diseases caused by dust. However, pitched against the demand for better conditions, workers are anxious about British buyers pulling out altogether and losing their jobs.

While the concept of fairly-traded goods has successfully permeated food shops, as well as the consumer psyche, the same cannot be said of the clothing side. Claire Breslin, from Glasgow, says she occasionally shops at Primark but is concerned by the low prices.

"It does make me think about where they are coming from," she says. However, Claire believes that low wage levels for many people in this country make value shops a necessity. "Low wages result in me, and others like me, having to resort to shops like Primark because the clothes in other shops have become too expensive."

No wonder the charity market is booming. Yesterday Oxfam launched a new initiative in recycling school uniforms with a pilot being run at its shop in Clarkston on the outskirts of Glagsow.

The cheap clothes market in Britain was last year estimated to be worth £7.8bn. Asda had the largest share of the market with 17% while Primark has 15% and Tesco, 11%. All three retailers have signed up to the Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI), a voluntary code of conduct set up in 1998 which sets out rights including a working week of not more than 48 hours, no more than 12 hours overtime and payment of a living wage. Some experts have calculated that a living wage is £22 but the official minimum wage in the factories is £12 and the National Garment Workers' Federation claim that even this is still being ignored by 60% of factories.

In a statement yesterday, a Primark spokesman expressed concern and stated that all the Bangladeshi suppliers had been audited in the last six months. "Because we know audits are an imperfect tool, Primark has chosen as well to work with other retailers through the Ethical Trading Initiative in an effort to influence the Bangladeshi authorities to improve statutory protection for workers and to ensure factories adhere to the law."

Likewise Asda has promised to investigate. An Asda spokeswoman said the company carries out up to three audits a year into conditions at its factories in Bangladesh and is looking into the possibility that a factory had sub-contracted work. She added that Asda's presence benefits the Bangladeshi community.

Tesco, the UK's biggest retailer, has stated that it carried out audits this year at all of its 48 sites. A spokesman says that the chain has continued to invest in modern factories and has done everything to ensure good conditions: "It is in everyone's interest that we continue buying from Bangladesh to raise working and living standards and we have a strong ethical trading programme to help us achieve this. The alternative - and it would be easier in many ways - would be for us to stop sourcing in countries that have economic and social problems which are beyond the capabilities of any organisation working alone to fix."

Not everyone agrees. Martin Hearson, campaigns co-ordinator for Labour Behind the Label, says: "The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) is a useful forum, a tool, but its effectiveness is based upon the effort that the companies put in and the ETI isn't as effective as it could be as the companies aren't putting in the effort."

Hearson says that legislation is the most effective way of improving conditions. "They need to work with local groups such as trade unions on the ground in the countries where the garments are made, rather than try to improve conditions from the top down."

So what is his advice for customers? "Consumers are in a difficult position because there's no guarantee that if they stop buying cheaper and start buying more expensive that the clothes will be made in any better conditions," says Hearson. "But at the same time, the rush to buy cheap clothes is putting pressure on all retailers so consumers need to be joining campaigns, reading up on the issues and getting in touch with companies and telling them that it is worth their while to deal with it because it will affect their sales otherwise."

What they say...
Asda
Asda's clothing line George, carries out up to three audits a year into conditions at its factories in Bangladesh, where employees work for several high street names. A spokeswoman for Asda said the company was investigating the possibility that a factory had sub-contracted work, a practice she says is "absolutely unacceptable". "We think being in Bangladesh has has a positive impact in terms of increasing wages, improving working conditions and getting benefits such as free medical treatment to people. That is some- thing that ordinary Bangladeshis don't receive. Because we are there, that happens."

Tesco
"In addition to our normal audit programme for all Bangladeshi factories making Tesco-brand products such as Cherokee, we have just completed unannounced audits at all 48 sites. "One of the hallmarks of Tesco's ethical trading policy is that its audit programme is proactive, not reactive. It is in everyone's interest that we continue buying from Bangladesh to raise working and living standards and we have a strong ethical trading programme to help us achieve this."

Primark
"Labour conditions in the Bangladeshi garment industry are an issue of considerable concern for Primark. We make great effort to ensure that factories with which we work comply with our code of supplier conduct, including a programme of regular third-party audits. "Because we know audits are an imperfect tool, Primark has chosen as well to work with other retailers through the Ethical Trading Initiative in an effort to influence the Bangladeshi authorities to improve statutory protection for workers and to ensure factories adhere to the law. This stance of engagement is supported in principle by most NGOs."