Tesco stopped the production of Christmas cards at a Chinese factory after a 6-year-old girl found a message about alleged forced labor.
Florence Widdicombe was preparing cards to send to her friends when she noticed one of them had a note.
The letter was written by inmates in Shanghai alleging they were ‘forced to work against our ill.’
In capital letters, the message read: “We are foreign prisoners in Shanghai Qingpu prison China. Forced to work against our will. Please help us and notify human rights organisation.”
The shocking message also asked the receiver to contact Peter Humphrey who has already spent time in Qingpu prison.
After learning about the letter, Tesco has since suspended production at the Chinese factory, saying it has now started an investigation.
“We would never allow prison labour in our supply chain,” the supermarket chain added.
Speaking about the letter, Florence told BBC: “It made me feel shocked.” She also said that she had been writing her 6th or 8th card when she saw one of them ‘had already written on it.’
When her father explained to her what the letter meant, the young girl said it made her feel ‘sad.’
Her dad, Ben, initially thought it was just a prank but realized the message was ‘potentially quite a serious thing.’
“I felt very shocked but also felt a responsibility to pass it on to Peter Humphrey as the author asked me to do,” he explained.
In a story Humphrey wrote for The Financial Times, he said: “It hits home. There are injustices in the world and there are people in difficult situations and we know about that and we read about that each and every day.
“There is something about that message hitting home at Christmas… that really does make it very poignant and very powerful.”
He continued: “It could have ended up anywhere. And indeed we have many cards as all families do that are left over and we put them in a drawer and forget about them. There is an incredible element of chance in all of this that the card was written, it got to us and we opened it on the day we did.”
A spokesperson for Tesco said: “We were shocked by these allegations and immediately halted production at the factory where these cards are produced and launched an investigation.”
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Replaced!