 After an open "call-for-help" letter posted on the Internet in earlier June, 2007, by more than 400 parents in Henan Province who believed their missing children or family members have been sold to the small brick kilns as slave workers, the use of slave workers came under nationwide spotlight and scrutiny.
National Outcry
Thousands of rural people, many of them children, were reportedly abducted, beaten, imprisoned and forced into slave labor in Shanxi's brickyards in the past years, stirring a nationwide anger.
Since then, Chinese police have been hunting down more than 20 people in connection to the slave labor scandal in north China's Shanxi Province, according to the Ministry of Public Security.
Ministry spokesman Wu Heping said at a press conference on June 19th that police had detained 30 people in a large-scale rescue operation of slave laborers in small brick kilns and mines in Shanxi, a coal-rich province of China.
Five of those arrested under hot-hunting had so far been charged, including 42-year-old Heng Tinghan who was arrested in connection with the death of one worker and the injuring of 20 others.
The ministry dispatched criminal investigation experts to Shanxi Province last week to guide and monitor the investigation, said Minister Wu.
China will also launch a large-scale nationwide investigation on laborers employed in small kilns and collieries following the exposure of the forced labor scandal in Shanxi Province.
Terrifying Working Conditions
State television has reported that owners of the primitive brick-making operations ran them like prisons with fierce dogs and beatings to deter escapes and beat children at will. Workers had been working in appalling conditions at small brick kilns and mines in Shanxi and neighboring Henan Province.
Many brick kilns owners in Shanxi Province forced workers to work 14 to 20 hours a day without payment. The slave workers suffered not only from illegal employment practices, but also from abduction, limited freedom, and even murder.
Further Implications
This is not the first time that brutality in Shanxi's brick industry had stirred a large-scale concern. In 2003, Prime Minister Wen called for tough punishment after a teenage boy was trapped into working in a kiln in Yongji, Shanxi, media reported at the time.
"The kiln situation is the tip of the iceberg," said June Teufel Dreyer, a China specialist at the University of Miami. "The problem for Beijing is finding out how large the submerged part is relative to the tip that shows, and how to deal with it."
"This issue is about much more than illegal work practices," the Guangzhou Daily said in an editorial. "We see more bloody crimes through it, like kidnapping, abducting, beating, abusing, or even murdering. Behind all of those crimes, there is the misconduct of local officials."
There are still about 200 million migrant workers, uneducated and grindingly poor, who are among the most vulnerable to exploitation by phony job offers, and they are easily picked out by the fertilizer bags they carry as improvised luggage. So there is long way ahead for China to finally stamp out slave workers throughout the nation.
(Source: chinadaily)
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