"Sweating" was a system of sub-contacting in the garment trade in mid-19 Century Britain. The Reverend Charles Kingsley wrote a polemic against sweat shops in 1850 called "Cheap Clothes and Nasty", so the issue has been around for at least 170 years. If you are concerned about the labor that went into your clothing, you might want to see how some of the rare metals that are in your electronic devices come out of the ground. It's even more inhumane. Buying real jewelry is akin to laying a whip on someone's back in a South American mudhole, by the way.

In any case, worrying about abused workers in another country is a lot easier than worrying about people who could use some help in your town. You could actually help them, but it would require that you actually do something.