CN Chinese factory worker writes allegations of forced labour in a Tesco card - Working retail at Christmas in the West isn't much better.

Tesco halts production at Chinese factory over alleged 'forced' labour

The six-year-old found a hand-written message from Chinese prisoners in a box of Christmas cards.

www.bbc.co.uk

Tesco has suspended production at a factory in China following allegations forced prison labour was used to pack charity Christmas cards.

It comes after the Sunday Times reported a six-year-old girl from south London found a message from Shanghai prisoners hidden in a box of cards.

"Please help us and notify human rights organisation," the message said.

Tesco said it was "shocked" by the report, adding: "We would never allow prison labour in our supply chain."

The supermarket said it would de-list the supplier of the cards, Zheijiang Yunguang Printing, if it was found to have used prison labour.

According to the Sunday Times, Florence Widdicombe opened a £1.50 box of Tesco cards to find that one of them - featuring a kitten with a Santa hat - had already been written in.

In block capitals, it said: "We are foreign prisoners in Shanghai Qingpu prison China. Forced to work against our will. Please help us and notify human rights organisation."

• Oxfam alleges UK supermarket supply chain abuse
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A Tesco spokeswoman said: "We were shocked by these allegations and immediately halted production at the factory where these cards are produced and launched an investigation."

The supermarket said it has a "comprehensive auditing system" to ensure suppliers are not exploiting forced labour.

The factory in question was checked only last month and no evidence of it breaking the ban on prison labour was found, it said.

Sales of charity Christmas cards at the company's supermarkets raise £300,000 a year for the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK and Diabetes UK.

The retailer has not received any other complaints from customers about messages inside Christmas cards.

Image copyrightCHINA PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGESImage captionA foreign inmate dries clothes at Shanghai Qingpu prison in 2006
The message in the card urged the recipient to contact Peter Humphrey, a journalist who was formerly imprisoned at Qingpu on what he described as "bogus charges that were never heard in court".

After the Widdicombe family sent him a message via Linkedin, Mr Humphrey said he then contacted ex-prisoners who confirmed inmates had been forced into mundane assembly and packaging tasks.

Mr Humphrey - the author of the Sunday Times story - also said that censorship in the prison had increased, cutting off his usual methods of contacting prisoners he had met before his release in 2015.

"They resorted to the Qingpu equivalent of a message in a bottle, scribbled on a Tesco Christmas card," he said.

It is not the first time that prisoners in China have reportedly smuggled out messages in products they have been forced to make for Western markets.

In 2012, Julie Keith from Portland, Oregon, discovered an account of torture and persecution by a prisoner who said he was forced to manufacture the Halloween decorations she had purchased.

----

Reports that Father Christmas has outsourced his North Pole workshop to China have continued to be unconfirmed.

 

[Imperialist #348]

is anyone surprised by this? also wasnt tesco the ones who sold horse meat for a time?

 

[Biffo]

Hope it's a prank, just because it would be funnier

 

[teriyakiburns]

is anyone surprised by this? also wasnt tesco the ones who sold horse meat for a time?

That was just about everyone. The horse meat entered the supply chain in a Romania, got re-labelled somewhere after slaughter, and ended up in meat products all over Europe.

 

[Imperialist #348]

That was just about everyone. The horse meat entered the supply chain in a Romania, got re-labelled somewhere after slaughter, and ended up in meat products all over Europe.

the more you know!

 

[Judge Holden]

Ok imma call bullshit on this.

Setting aside how this whole story "conveniently" tugs on as many heartstrings as possible and the absurd unlikiness all these factors coming together at a time of year when muted criticism of china is starting to become trendy again, not to mention the parents very obviously shopping this story round to a bunch of different newspapers, this entire situation is literally a fucking meme older than the internet.

There is zero doubt china is a fucked up mishmash of a quasi-nazi dictatorship and a semi medieval hellhole with a thin "capitalist communist" paintjob and is doing all kinds of stupidly evil shit to any chink who they suspect of rising above their drooling nationalist bumpkin station and any minority that doesnt politely lie down and die, but the media hyping up blatantly horseshit stories like this just gives fodder to chinese state propaganda to "prove" how western media is lying about them.

 

[Overly Serious]

Ok imma call bullshit on this.

Setting aside how this whole story "conveniently" tugs on as many heartstrings as possible and the absurd unlikiness all these factors coming together at a time of year when muted criticism of china is starting to become trendy again, not to mention the parents very obviously shopping this story round to a bunch of different newspapers, this entire situation is literally a fucking meme older than the internet.

There is zero doubt china is a fucked up mishmash of a quasi-nazi dictatorship and a semi medieval hellhole with a thin "capitalist communist" paintjob and is doing all kinds of stupidly evil shit to any chink who they suspect of rising above their drooling nationalist bumpkin station and any minority that doesnt politely lie down and die, but the media hyping up blatantly horseshit stories like this just gives fodder to chinese state propaganda to "prove" how western media is lying about them.

Don't see anything in this that qualifies as "blatant horseshit". It's not new for Chinese prisoners to have entered SOS messages into the products they are forced to make and at least one of these seems pretty substantially corroborated (the Halloween one in the OP's link). Unless you consider the idea of someone doing this wildly improbable then all the rest follows pretty easily - somebody is going to open the box and find it. And I know I personally wouldn't just throw it away and forget about it so I don't know why I should assume everybody else would. The journalist asked for by name served time in a Chinese prison so it's not like that would be unlikely either. Of course you'd put the name of the Western journalist who was on your cell block on there. Anything to increase the chance it might get attention.

 

[BScCollateral]

Could be real; could be a hoax. I wouldn't bet a dime either way. It's not like there isn't precedent.

In WWII, advanced German weapons were built in a network of underground factories. Conditions were so horrific The Rocket and the Reich claims more people died building the V-2 than from having one fired at them.

One Me-163 owned by the Smithsonian was captured unflown. It was sabotaged and would have killed the pilot on takeoff. Written on the fuel tank in French was the message "I hate my job." I hope that man survived the war, and died surrounded by grandchildren.

 

[Sexual Chocolate]

PS - Melly Clistmas

 

[Agent of Z.O.G.]

Reminds me of that time the back of my shoe sole had some moon letters on the back of it.
These hidden messages are't that uncommon though the news reminding you this stuff exists might be motivated by something.

 

[Thank Fuck For Evil Otto]

Ok imma call bullshit on this.

Setting aside how this whole story "conveniently" tugs on as many heartstrings as possible and the absurd unlikiness all these factors coming together at a time of year when muted criticism of china is starting to become trendy again, not to mention the parents very obviously shopping this story round to a bunch of different newspapers, this entire situation is literally a fucking meme older than the internet.

There is zero doubt china is a fucked up mishmash of a quasi-nazi dictatorship and a semi medieval hellhole with a thin "capitalist communist" paintjob and is doing all kinds of stupidly evil shit to any chink who they suspect of rising above their drooling nationalist bumpkin station and any minority that doesnt politely lie down and die, but the media hyping up blatantly horseshit stories like this just gives fodder to chinese state propaganda to "prove" how western media is lying about them.

The claims seem to have substance:

Chinese prisoners allegedly made products for H&M and C&A

Released from a Chinese prison, a British investigator says he saw prisoners laboring for international brands that ban such work in their supply chain.

qz.com

Subscribe to read | Financial Times

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication

www.ft.com

 

[SmileyTimeDayCare]

Hey at least they kept their organs.

 

[Ex Cummunicated Sasser HD]

That was just about everyone. The horse meat entered the supply chain in a Romania, got re-labelled somewhere after slaughter, and ended up in meat products all over Europe.

Yeah, it went through pretty much every major processed beef product. If I remember correctly there were a lot of Irish suppliers who were also supplying all over Europe that got caught up in it too.

 

[Maskull]

Hey at least they kept their organs.

As far as you know.

 

[Queen Of The Harpies]

How dare those commie chinks pull a downer on Christmas.

 

[frozenrunner]

So you're telling me Trump is an international hero of human rights for getting more businesses to pull out of China?

The media will surely see it that way.

 

[K-Hole]

We are foreign prisoners ...


...said no enslaved Chinaman, ever. *


We are fed the news through soundbites they want our small minds to discuss.

A good metric for knowing when something is possible BS is when it's on the 'Boomer Box' as well.

I'm at home for xmas with my folks - haven't seen them for months. They are glued to the box. Not interested in talking to me, their only remaining son. We had a nice dinner and a bottle of wine. But they are addicted to 'the papers' as they call them: pundits positing their ever so unique insights in to the news that will be tomorrow's news in 'the papers'. My folks like to rant and rave at these pundits, which throws up an interesting proposition in itself. Whatevs.

I only mention this because this particular news story was part of their nightly fix. I hopelessly tried to explain to them that this particular pundit probably had an iPhone or used an Apple computer and that they have 'safety nets' at the plants in China where they make much of the hardware for the Apple products, because the workers are so hopelessly depressed that they literally throw themselves out from the top story windows.

I got shooed away. "Oh we just want to see what the story is about". They loved it. Pure boomer fodder. I'm not so in to that whole inter-generational baiting and fighting - I get that it's a divisive thing. But boy, do they lap this shit up.

So I take a kind of Jeremy Paxman tack when dealing with the news. Paxman always said the most basic breakdown of his oeuvre and weltanschauung whenever interviewing someone could be summed up by the expression: Why is this lying bastard lying to me?

So, why are these lying bastards telling me this, and why are these lying bastards putting it on the Boomer Box for my boomer parents to digest? I don't think it's any great nefarious secret plan. If I had to say, I think it's just entertainment. It's something that the boomers can feel self-righteous and tut-tut about.

Didn't really want to dive in to the whole sorry mess that is the 'boomer thing' on my first post. Soz about that. Could have been worse though I suppose. I could have really shown my power-level and let you in to the deepest of my unique hard-won world-truths: It was da (((Jews)))!

Count your blessings.


*
We are foreign prisoners

(How do you do? Fellow free people?)

 

[K-Hole]

How dare those commie chinks pull a downer on Christmas.

Commie concentration camps with high-rise safety netting.
Forced child-slave labour to assemble over-priced lifestyle statement-piece tat.
Manufactured with Coltan from the Congo (the most resource rich nation on the planet and one of the poorest).
Dug out of the ground by child-slave labour, working their little fingers to the bone, all to make the parts to assemble...





...

sent from my iPhone.

 

[Derped223]

Hey at least they kept their organs.

You sure about that?

 

[TheFloor]

Ok imma call bullshit on this.

Setting aside how this whole story "conveniently" tugs on as many heartstrings as possible and the absurd unlikiness all these factors coming together at a time of year when muted criticism of china is starting to become trendy again, not to mention the parents very obviously shopping this story round to a bunch of different newspapers, this entire situation is literally a fucking meme older than the internet.

There is zero doubt china is a fucked up mishmash of a quasi-nazi dictatorship and a semi medieval hellhole with a thin "capitalist communist" paintjob and is doing all kinds of stupidly evil shit to any chink who they suspect of rising above their drooling nationalist bumpkin station and any minority that doesnt politely lie down and die, but the media hyping up blatantly horseshit stories like this just gives fodder to chinese state propaganda to "prove" how western media is lying about them.

I also call bullshit. Notice how “a child” found this. (We do love to use children these days to push our narratives, don’t we?) Six years old. She’s sending Christmas cards? A six year old child, and in 2019? Yeah, no. I also find it strange that a Chinese prisoner wrote this message in English. China is a really big land mass filled with A LOT of people who can’t write in Chinese. Their government loves an ignorant populace. Now, look. I do not doubt the narrative of forced prison labor in China, but this particular story reeks.