Tesco says it has suspended production at a Chinese factory following allegations that prisoners were forced to pack charity Christmas cards.
The allegations came to light after the Sunday Times reported that Florence Widdicombe, aged six, from Tooting, south London, opened a box of charity Christmas cards from the supermarket and discovered a plea for help inside one of them.
The message read: “We are foreign prisoners in Shanghai Qinqpu prison China. Forced to work against our will. Please help us and notify human rights organisation.”
It also urged the reader of the message to contact Peter Humphrey, a former journalist who spent 23 months imprisoned at the same Qingpu prison. Florence’s father, Ben Widdicombe, contacted Humphrey, who took the story to the Sunday Times.
Humphrey wrote that he contacted several members of an “informal network of ex-prisoners,” who told him that inmates in the foreign prisoners unit are being forced into “mundane manual assembly or packaging tasks.”
Another ex-prisoner who now lives in the UK told Humphrey that prisoners had been packaging Christmas cards and gift tags for Tesco for at least two years. The reporter himself, who said he was jailed on “bogus charges” for his work as a corporate fraud investigator, said that during his time in Qingpu prison, he had seen “product tags with the names of other high street brands.”
“We abhor the use of prison labor and would never allow it in our supply chain,” a spokesperson for Tesco said in a statement.
“We were shocked by these allegations and immediately suspended the factory where these cards are produced and launched an investigation. We have also withdrawn these cards from sale whilst we investigate,” they added.
