The BBC Trust ruled that the footage on the Panorama programme showing small children working on clothing for Primark in Banglore in June 2008 was not authentic. The programme highlighted how Primark’s own ethical guidelines were being broken with its suppliers outsourcing to home workers and smaller factories who were using small children.
However, some of the journalists concerned, including Guardian media correspondence Roy Greensdale, are outraged and are concerned that this ruling has been made on inconclusive evidence.
Despite sending an extensive inquiry into the reporting of the programme and sending another journalist, the BBC Trust are not 100% certain that the footage isn’t real. Even so, they have still ruled in favour of Primark on the “balance of probabilities” – that because the footage only showed these vests then it must have been faked.
Primark have already admitted and sacked four of its suppliers following the documentary but claimed that the 45 seconds of footage in a Banglore workshop, “testing” Primark brown vest tops to make sure that sequins would not fall off, was set up. Primark have of course welcomed the ruling as they feel that many people were deceived by the programme from customers, suppliers, retailers, and teachers.
Having been involved in ethical fashion for over ten years now, my thoughts are this. In the industry, Primark have been notorious for unethical practices despite having ethical guidelines. Their factories have had monitoring issues, employment issues and child labour issues and it has taken a documentary such as this Panorama programme to initiate action from Primark to try and eradicate these problems. 45 seconds out of an hour long programme is in question. However, whilst this footage is in question (and so it should be) what is not in question is that Primark’s suppliers were outsourcing, using poor working conditions, offering poor pay and using child labour, so how Primark can say, that the viewers have been deceived, is beyond me.
Dan McDougall is an Amnesty award winning investigative reporter who has an incredible record of exposing human rights violations. Frank Simmonds is an experienced producer who has been responsible for many important revelatory Panorama programmes. Both stand by the authenticity of the footage and have written public statement damning the findings.
Whilst I don’t believe that journalism shouldn’t be questioned, I do believe that discrediting such worthy journalists on the “balance of probabilities” is extremely unjust.
It is worth noting that 6 months after this programme, Dan McDougall, exposed Primark for employing illegal immigrants in a UK sweatshop.
Bunty
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