From Ruth Pilkington.
I LOVE a bargain as much as anybody and can well appreciate how necessary it is for many of us today to hunt for good value before we buy. But I implore those who would wish to introduce a third supermarket chain into Jersey, solely on its reputation for offering cut-price goods, to ask themselves some uncomfortable questions.
Why are the goods so cheap? Where are they manufactured or harvested and by whom? What are their working conditions like? Are they paid a living wage? And, most importantly, is child labour involved?
However desperate we may feel about making ends meet in what, for many, is a frightening economic situation, can any of us in Jersey be party to a trade in human tragedy and abuse, just because it is out of sight and mind? Or do we answer, as many would have done in the days of the slave trade: ‘It’s no concern of mine. Charity begins at home – if I don’t benefit someone else will’?
97 Rose Mews,
L’Hermitage Gardens,
St Peter.
