So last week I blogged about how I’d not received any answers to my questions about the use of child slave picked cotton from Uzbekistan from any of the High Street retailers except ASOS. So I posted messages on the Facebook walls of Top Shop and River Island. This is what happened afterwards.
River Island actually got back to me quite quickly. They directed me to their ethical trading policy on their website. This is further than I got before so I was sort of hopeful. However when I looked at the policy is was very vague. It could be summed up as “we’ll try not to do anything too bad.” I left them another message saying it didn’t answer my question. They told me to email customer services, which I’d done before and got no reply. I have sent off another email and will report back if I hear anything other than an automated response.
Top Shop meanwhile decided to take a more hostile approach and deleted my comment altogether. Why such censorship? It was a politely worded legitimate question. It suggests they have something to hide. Either that or they need to get a new social media manager.
Of course it’s a silly tactic. I have a screen shot of the comment so it’s not disappearing off the internet. If you’re reading this blog then please share it as widely as you can so that Top Shop can’t continue to censor me. Keep the Facebook comment in circulation until they give us a reply.
It is awful that they have censored you like this! There are more reasons on my list now to avoid the Arcadia group. I also disapprove of their tax-dodging! So glad I gave up high street! What did ASOS say? I like that they stock fairtrade and organic brands.
Zoe
(Sorry if there’s two comments, didn’t seem like first one worked!)
Here is ASOS’ comment: “We are fully aware of this unacceptable situation in Uzbekistan and are acting accordingly. Over the summer we trained over 100 of our buying staff on this issue and we will continue to do so. We are also members of the ETI, working together with NGOs and other retailers and operate under a robust code of conduct.”