The Case of "Primark"

Is Primark really an unethical company or just a victim of their own partners?

There have been several scandals of using child labour in production facilities of Primark suppliers in India during the past years but the company's image was never strongly affected. They survived every scandal without losing customers and indeed set in to the Ethical Trading Initiative. This organisation fights for the human rights of employees all around the world and Primark as a textile retailer could only join ETI through promising and proving their ethical responsibility.

In 2009 Primark had to face allegations and public discussions again during the UK 'sweatshop' scandal. Some reporters of The Guardian and BBC smuggled an undercover journalist into TNS Knitwear, one of Primark's suppliers located in Manchester.

The working conditions at TNS Knitwear were absolutely inhuman and illegal. People were working there 12 hours a day 7 days in a week for half of the minimum wage (3£ per hour). Some of them had no working permits while others even didn't have a visa and also the health and safety standards set by the british government weren't followed. The journalist had no problems to get a job there and made some films with a hidden camera.  
Primark strained their own internal investigations and affirmed their innocence. The company had to remove all ETI certificates because the requirements for ethical behaviour was ment for all suppliers and subcontractors of the Primark group. Even if Primark wasn't aware of the ongoing abuse of human beings at TNS Knitwear, the group's management couldn't put all the blame on TNS as easily as they did. 
Regarding the company history facing child labour among their indian suppliers Primark was obligated to supervise and controll all their partners - on the one side to make sure that ETI rules were hold and on the other side to obviously prove their social responsibility... and not only promise it!
Maybe Primark wasn't to blame for people working at TNS in such bad conditions, but still Primark was to blame for not learning from former incidents which means the company itself was to blame for not reacting.