Buy a pregnancy test in a pharmacy in France, discover, hidden in the instructions, an anonymous letter in which a Chinese prisoner denounces the forced labor conditions he is subjected to, investigate the author of this bottle thrown into the sea and contribute to a vote in the European Parliament on the “duty of vigilance” imposed on European importers towards their suppliers: such is the unusual story told by Laetitia Moreau in her documentary Forced Work, the SOS to a Chinese prisoner.
To try to find out more, both about forced labor in Chinese prisons and about this anonymous prisoner, Laetitia Moreau interviewed former prisoners, both Chinese and foreign. This letter is not a unique case. At Christmas 2019, for example, a little English girl found a similar missive in a greeting card marketed by the distributor Tesco. The affair had stirred British opinion.
Laetitia Moreau shows that the laogai, the “work reform centers” created by Mao Zedong on the model of the Soviet gulag, continue to exist, even if they have officially disappeared. They even constitute an important cog in the economy. Not only is forced labor widespread, but prisons are real profit centers which integrate public companies and allow staff to make ends meet.
After investigation, Laetitia Moreau discovered that no less than five Chinese public companies work directly within the walls of the Tianjin municipal prison, near Beijing, where the message originated. As this proves, “prison companies” do not only work for China, but also for export. At the end of May, MEP Raphaël Glucksmann brandished the anonymous message found in the pregnancy test in the European Parliament, during the debate on the “duty of vigilance”.
National politics
While forced labor by Chinese prisoners is not new, many have associated it with the Mao years. Wrongly. In the 2000s, we discovered that China was going so far as to “export” its prisoners to carry out construction projects at lower cost in certain emerging countries. At the time, we were not yet talking about “new silk roads”.
It was only on the occasion of the revelations, published in 2020, on the fate reserved for Uighur prisoners in Xinjiang that public opinion became again interested in this phenomenon, which does not only concern this Muslim minority. in the northwest of the country, but is a national policy.
For largely political reasons, the United States has seized it and, since 2021, has required companies that import products from Xinjiang to prove “clearly and convincingly” that they are not, even partially, the result of labor. strength ; which, even according to NGOs, is almost impossible. This law, undoubtedly excessive – the economy of Xinjiang is not based solely on forced labor – is insufficient, since this practice goes far beyond the framework of this province.
The story does not say whether the patient who purchased the test was pregnant. In any case, it gave birth to a very effective documentary revealing a reality that is particularly difficult to investigate.