"GAP - Globally Abusing People" the banner reads. Anyone who has heard the phrase 'Sweatshop' in the last year should know that the GAP are one of the main Multinational companies actively exploiting Third World poverty for profit, along with Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Starbucks, MacDonalds, and now apparently Marks and Spencer.

"What have GAP done?" asks someone, a girl of 16/17. I babble about exploitation and bad working conditions, underage workers, but I can see it's not really understood. I guess if we were in Nigeria, she and I would both know more about these things.

Some of the teenagers are getting involved - 'That's me' they say and run off to grab a banner and join the sit-down protest. About 150 people turn up and show active support - far more than expected. All the leaflets are gone within 20 minutes. I can see the main door has been blocked by people sitting down and chanting 'No Child Labour'. This doesn't stop some people still climbing over to get into the shop though.

Two police clear the sitters, and I ask them why? It's a fire exit they say, but they seem happy that there is no trouble or bad feeling. Only hours later did I remember the tale of the child labourers, burned to death living in squalid dormitories above the sweatshop with (guess what?) - no fire exits. Hundreds die this way every year. Talk about double standards.

From GapSucks.org

"Gap executives make up to $24,000 an hour. The Gap can afford to pay more than 35 cents per hour to their workers in Honduras," said Mary Bull of San Francisco, national coordinator of the Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap Campaign. The Don and Doris Fisher family of San Francisco, owner of the Gap, is also harming the environment with its logging practices on 235,000 acres of Mendocino forestland purchased from Louisiana-Pacific Corp. in 1998, she said. The family started the Mendocino Redwood Co., the land's current owner.

From No Logo by Naomi Klien

"The lavish spending of the 1990s on marketing, mergers and brand extentions has been matched by never-before-seen resistance to investing in production facilities and labour.  Compainies that were traditional satisfied with a 100% markup between the cost of factory production and the retail price have been scouring the globe for factories that can make their products so inexpensively that the markup is closer to 400 percent."

From the BBC/Panorama

"The two hugely successful international brands claim that regular monitoring ensures that most factories are free of unethical working practices.   However, the Panorama team uncovered sweat-shop working conditions and child labour at the June Textiles factory within days of arriving in Cambodia."