Arguably the customer doesn't have clarity on this situation here. Customers vote with their dollars and the reason they vote for these companies is because their products are relatively speaking the cheapest for some particular level of quality.
The resolution should be on the western governments to tax or fine the ever-loving crap out of companies and their products that utilize systems like this. Then the products' end prices will reflect the true cost to the consumer because any ethically-produced product of equivalent quality should be cheaper.
Not in this case. Since the non-ethical market participants are non-ethical, they tend to use non-ethical means: like hiding from or like lying to their customers about where and how their products were produced.
Therefore it is not really an informed decision of the customer that makes them successful. It rather is the lack of transparency of the market, due to the non-ethical sellers lying and regulation being too lax.
i buy the cheaper of most products because i can't tell the difference. for all i know it could be the more expensive one that is lying to me. only if i actually know that the more expensive one is genuinely better, not fake and not based on exploited labor, then i'll buy that.
The resolution should be on the western governments to tax or fine the ever-loving crap out of companies and their products that utilize systems like this. Then the products' end prices will reflect the true cost to the consumer because any ethically-produced product of equivalent quality should be cheaper.