Penneys' investigation concludes "cry for help" labels are a hoax
Primark (which trades as Penneys in Ireland ) have said that the two labels found sewn into dresses from its Swansea store are a hoax.
The company began an investigation after two customers discovered the hand-stitched notes that appeared to be from factory workers complaining of their working conditions.
Rebecca Jones, who found the first label which read âforced to work exhausting hoursâ told the South Wales Evening Post that she feared it had been âmade by some exhausted person toiling away for hours in some sweatshop abroad.â
The second label, found by Rebecca Jones, read: âDegrading sweatshop conditionsâ
In a statement released today, Primark said that the company is confident that the labels are not from their factories.
âOur investigation into the labels sewn onto two garments bought separately from our Swansea store in 2013, has led us to the conclusion that it is more likely than not, to have been a hoax carried out in the UK,â said a spokesman.
âThe labels are clearly from the same source. It is almost impossible to imagine circumstances in which such similar labels could have been sewn onto the garments at the factory where they were made, given that they were made by different suppliers, in different factories, on different continents, one in Romania and the other in India, thousands of miles apart."
"However, both garments carrying the hoax labels, were bought from our Swansea store in 2013.â
Primark said that an exhibition of labels - similiar to the ones found - took place in Swansea in 2013. Visitors to the exhibition were encouraged to sew the labels onto clothing.
Primark said they were continuing their investigation into a separate incident in Belfast where a shopper found a handwritten note inside a pair of trousers.
The note - written in Chinese - read: "We are prisoners in the Xiang Nan Prison of the Hubei Province in China. Our job inside the prison is to produce fashion clothes for export."
