Earlier this week, a Primark shopper from Swansea discovered a "cry for help" label stitched into her £10 dress – but the incident might just be the tip of the iceberg. Another SOS message has been discovered by a Primark customer from Northern Ireland, this time containing a handwritten message of distress from China.

The Belfast shopper, Karen Wisinska, said that she bought the pair of trousers from Primark in June 2011 but had stored the garment away without wearing it. She discovered the message when she retrieved it from a cupboard last week. Wisinska sent the note to Amnesty International, which translated the message:

"SOS! SOS! SOS! 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. We work 15 hours per day and the food we eat wouldn't even be given to dogs or pigs. We work as hard as oxen in the field. We call on the international community to condemn the Chinese government for the violation of our human rights!"