Fact - The human cost of our cheap clothing is paid for by workers in factories around the globe. In factories in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, China, and more, the people who make our clothes live in poverty, usually earning just half of what they need to meet their basic needs and those of their families.

Yet, in the UK at least, this is an industry that on paper supports the principle of a living wage. Most high street fashion brands have the commitment to pay a living wage written into their ethical codes. Yet little is being done to deliver this into the pay packets of workers who desperately need it. This lip service to ethical responsibility without real action to end poverty has gone on long enough. This is why we are demanding that brands and retailers here in the UK take action to make sure workers producing their goods are paid a living wage.

This campaign isn't new. Since 2006 our Let's Clean up Fashion report has been monitoring company progress towards paying a living wage, which you can read all about here. Primark in 2008 came under pressure from campaigners across the UK to take action to end sweatshop conditions in their supply chains and pay a living wage. Then in 2010 our Taking Liberties report found Indian workers producing for Next, M&S and Debenhams, living in slum housing, having difficulties affording food, not to mention the union intimidation and violence, long hours in sweltering temperatures, verbal and physical abuse, unsafe water and poor sanitation.

This cycle of poverty needs to be broken. Companies must do more, together and individually, to live up to promises and pay a living wage.