An Australian woman living in New York has been shocked to find a note hidden inside her paper shopping bag from a man in a Chinese prison factory pleading for help.
Stephanie Wilson was reaching for a receipt inside the paper shopping bag from Saks Fifth Avenue, where she had bought a pair of Hunter rain boots.
The message was from a desperate man who said he made the bag while being unfairly held in a Chinese prison factory more than 11,000km away.
“HELP, HELP, HELP. We are ill treated and work like slaves for 13 hours every day producing these bags in bulk in the prison factory,” he wrote.
It was signed by a man named Njong Emmanuel Tohnain and was accompanied by a small passport-sized colour photo of a man in an orange jacket.
Stephanie Wilson told DNAinfo, “I read the letter and I was just shocked.”
The letter also included the man’s email address.
Stephanie, who works in human rights, took the letter to the Laogai Research Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group founded to fight human rights abuses in Chinese prisons.
Back in September 2012 when the note first surfaced, they had no luck in tracing the man as his email address appeared to be shut down.
DNAinfo reports that Harry Wu, the founder of Laogai Research Foundation, said Njong took a huge risk in writing and sending it.
Top Comments
So she just happens to work for "Social Accountability International" that campaigns for oppressed workers?
Out of 7 billion people she just happens to pick up one bag (out of 100's of thousands) with a sad story of a jailed man's forced labour?
That just happens to concur with her advocacy?
Then this same chap gets a teaching job in Dubai after 3 years in a Chinese prison for fraud?
Now just wait for the pleas for money.......
So what? He was a prisoner, working in a prison factory.
Jesus. What must it be like to live completely void of human empathy?
And so that makes it ok for their basic human rights to be abused does it?