Report on Supply Chain Compliance 3, no. 1 (January 9, 2020)
A young girl in the United Kingdom found a note allegedly written by prisoners in a Shanghai factory that produces charity Christmas cards. The note said, “We are foreign prisoners in Shanghai Qingpu prison China. Forced to work against our will. Please help us and notify human rights organisation.”
A former prisoner, Peter Humphrey, gave credence to the account, telling the BBC that life was indeed harsh in the Chinese prison and that manufacturing work was compulsory. Tesco PLC, which sells the cards, claimed to be investigating the matter and vowed it would delist the supplier of the cards, Zhejiang Yunguang Printing, if the company was indeed using prison labor: “We were shocked by these allegations and immediately halted production at the factory where these cards are produced and launched an investigation,” a spokeswoman told the BBC, adding that Tesco has a comprehensive auditing system for identifying forced labor in the supply chain.[1]
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