A girl aged six discovered a desperate note in her pack of Christmas cards from a Chinese prisoner forced to work against their will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Florence Widdicombe, from London, was stunned when she opened the new box of charity cards from UK-based grocery chain Tesco. Instead of a Christmas greeting, she found the scrawled message inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is believed to have been written by a foreign prisoner who was made to pack the cards in boxes at a gulag in Shanghai, The Sun <\/a>reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The note was inside a card, which featured a cute kitten in a Santa hat on the front. It said: \u201cWe are foreign prisoners in Shanghai Qingpu prison China. Forced to work against our will. Please help us and notify human rights organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Florence Widdicombe, 6, found a message from a Chinese prisoner in a new pack of Tesco Christmas cards. Picture: Dominic Lipinski\/PA via APSource:AP<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen I looked at the message in the card I thought it was incredible and wondered if it was a prank,\u201d Florence\u2019s father Ben Widdicombe said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He decided it would be \u201cwrong not to pass it on to its intended recipient. It must have been very risky for those prisoners.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The note asked the finder to pass it to Peter Humphrey, a former British journalist who was detained in China while working as a corporate investigator and spent time at the same Shanghai prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Humphrey told the BBC he thinks he knows who wrote the message. He said he won\u2019t identify the person for fear the inmate would face retribution. Humphrey said he was \u201cpretty sure\u201d it was put inside the card by a group of prisoners as a collective request for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n UK GROCERY GIANT NAMED AND SHAMED<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey have been packing Christmas cards for Tesco, and also Tesco gift tags, for at least two years,\u201d an ex-prisoner said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe foreign prisoners just package the cards. They pick different designs, put them into boxes, seal them and pack them into shipping cartons.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The shocking discovery has raised worrying questions over Tesco\u2019s relationship with its Chinese suppliers and their use of forced prison labour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The supermarket giant\u2019s charity cards will this year rake in \u00a3300,000 ($AU565,000) for the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK and Diabetes UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCharities exist to help people, not to put them under duress,\u201d Jeremy Lune, chief executive of Cards for Good Causes, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n WORK HALTED AT CHINESE FACTORY AMID SLAVE LABOUR CLAIMS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Tesco said it was \u201cshocked\u201d by the discovery and would never allow prison labor in its supply chain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It has suspended use of the factory and launched an investigation into the Chinese supplier it hired to make the holiday cards, Zheijiang Yunguang Printing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe abhor the use of prison labour and would never allow it in our supply chain,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Instead of a seasonal greeting, a six-year-old girl found a desperate cry for help scrawled on a note inside her pack of Christmas cards. Matt Coyle A girl aged six discovered a desperate note in her pack of Christmas cards from a Chinese prisoner forced to work against their will. Florence Widdicombe, from London, was […]\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"tpgb_global_settings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[39,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-trafficking","category-news"],"tpgb_featured_images":{"full":["https:\/\/site.hopetoheal.org.za\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/v3imagesbin36e23ea8790cd613d3827f5fcadd1068-8ffxs8ya1yvtxjsbjt2_t1880.jpg",1280,720,false],"tp-image-grid":["https:\/\/site.hopetoheal.org.za\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/v3imagesbin36e23ea8790cd613d3827f5fcadd1068-8ffxs8ya1yvtxjsbjt2_t1880.jpg",700,394,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/site.hopetoheal.org.za\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/v3imagesbin36e23ea8790cd613d3827f5fcadd1068-8ffxs8ya1yvtxjsbjt2_t1880-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/site.hopetoheal.org.za\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/v3imagesbin36e23ea8790cd613d3827f5fcadd1068-8ffxs8ya1yvtxjsbjt2_t1880-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/site.hopetoheal.org.za\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/v3imagesbin36e23ea8790cd613d3827f5fcadd1068-8ffxs8ya1yvtxjsbjt2_t1880-768x432.jpg",768,432,true],"large":["https:\/\/site.hopetoheal.org.za\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/v3imagesbin36e23ea8790cd613d3827f5fcadd1068-8ffxs8ya1yvtxjsbjt2_t1880.jpg",1020,574,false],"default":"https:\/\/site.hopetoheal.org.za\/staging\/wp-content\/plugins\/the-plus-addons-for-block-editor\/assets\/images\/tpgb-placeholder.jpg"},"tpgb_post_meta_info":{"get_date":"December 25, 2019","get_modified_date":"December 25, 2019","category_list":{"category":[{"term_id":39,"name":"Human Trafficking","slug":"human-trafficking","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":39,"taxonomy":"category","description":"Human Trafficking News and Updates","parent":0,"count":61,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":19,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":19,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":238,"filter":"raw"}],"post_tag":false,"post_format":false},"author_name":"Hope To Heal","author_url":"https:\/\/site.hopetoheal.org.za\/staging\/author\/hope2233\/","author_email":"webmaster@hopetoheal.org.za","author_website":"","author_description":"Our mission is for women and children to live free from violence and abuse and to provide quality, compassionate, and nonjudgmental services in a manner that fosters self-respect and independence in persons experiencing domestic violence and child abuse and to lead the struggle to end domestic violence through advocacy and community education.","author_facebook":"","author_twitter":"","author_instagram":"","author_role":["administrator"],"author_firstname":"Hope To","author_lastname":"Heal Foundation","user_login":"Hope2233","author_avatar":"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
