Lessons from China's slavery
scandal By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - An unfolding national scandal on
the large-scale abuse of child laborers in China's
brick-kiln industry raises questions on the
adequacy of planned labor laws that are supposed
to take on sweatshops and protect workers' rights.
The first signs of the scandal surfaced
early this month when local newspapers carried a
staggering photograph of a group of migrant
workers freed after more than a year of slave
labor in a brick kiln in central China.
By
the standards of the Chinese state-sanctioned
press, which
frowns
on sensationalism, the photograph was more than
shocking - it showed people who were bruised,
wounded and burned, with clear signs of
malnutrition and dazed expressions of disbelief at
their sudden freedom.
Yet the story
accompanying the photograph was even more
astounding in a country where the ruling Communist
Party swept to power with pledges to create a
workers' paradise.
The 32 migrants had
been duped into believing that they were being
offered paid jobs, but once inside the brickworks
in Caosheng village of Shanxi province, they were
forced to work under the watch of guards and dogs
for 18 hours a day. None received any money for
the whole time of their enslavement, and they
survived only on water and steamed rolls of bread.
When a police raid freed the migrants late
last month it was discovered that one man had been
beaten to death with a hammer. Among the others,
eight were so traumatized that they could only
remember their names. All had burns on their hands
and bodies from having to carry the hot bricks
without protection. Their clothes had been reduced
to rags, and "the grime on their bodies was so
thick it could be scraped off with a knife", said
the report in the Shanxi Evening News.
The
brick kiln was operated by a foreman identified as
Heng Tinghan, but owned by the son of the local
Communist Party chief. According to local
villagers, the brickworks were illegal but still
allowed to operate with the tacit agreement of the
local police and officials because the party
boss's son owned them.
The extraordinary
revelations were followed by an open letter
circulated on a Chinese Internet forum alleging
that at least 1,000 children aged between eight
and 16 years have been enslaved in illegal brick
kilns in Shanxi province. The letter, signed by
400 fathers from the central province of Henan,
pleaded for help in their self-organized campaign
to rescue the kidnapped children. It said the
children had been kidnapped or forced into cars in
urban Henan centers such as the capital Zhengzhou,
then sold to factory bosses for about 500 yuan
(US$65) each.
Henan province's rugged
terrain was used by Mao Zedong's military
strategists to hide thousands of factories
churning out arms and ammunition in the late
1960s. Many of these caves now house illegal brick
kilns, according to Henan fathers, where kidnapped
children and migrants work in horrific conditions.
"The places those children lived in were
worse than dog kennels," Chai Wei, a Henan father
who had managed to enter several dozen brickworks
in search for his missing son, told the Xinjingbao
newspaper. "There were no beds - they slept on
wooden planks, and the walls were covered in
excrement. We were scared stiff by what we saw."
Chai had spearheaded the rescue efforts of
nearly 100 parents who pooled money to hire a car
and go around the brickworks in Shanxi. Their
search had managed to salvage about 100 children,
Chai said, but there were hundreds more. His own
17-year-old son, who disappeared from Zhengzhou in
April, had not been found.
"We got no help
whatsoever from the local police," Chai complained
bitterly. "Many of the local police are close to
the kilns' owners and would warn them ahead if a
search party was coming. We learned not to rely on
them [the police] but to tour the kilns one by one
ourselves."
The discovery of provincial
webs of slave labor was made public just as China
is preparing to adopt a new labor law that has
been deliberated by legislators for many months.
The new law aims to crack down on sweatshops and
workers' abuses by giving state-controlled unions
real power for the first time since Beijing
introduced market reforms in the 1980s.
Over the past 10 years, China's economy
has been growing at double-digit rate thanks to
the labor of millions of migrant workers churning
out goods for export in exchange for low wages.
But as the economy boomed, labor disputes
multiplied. More and more workers have gone to
court or taken to the streets to protest poor
working conditions and overdue pay.
The
government has described the new legislation as a
fresh attempt to improve worker protection and
stop labor abuses. But it is not clear how
effective it would be in this vast country where
many local officials tend to ignore or skirt
directives from the central government.
Workers' advocates argue that enforcement
powers will be improved only if Beijing allows
independent labor unions.
"With no
supervision or advocacy from the collective power
of labor, laws and central government resolutions
will not be respected or administered," said Cai
Chongguo, a labor-rights expert with the Hong
Kong-based China Labor Bulletin.
After
all, China already has a labor law and a law on
protection of minors, but neither could prevent
the forced-labor scandal in Shanxi, noted a signed
commentary by the Xinhua News Agency on Sunday.
"The reason why such flagrant crimes were
committed in the brick kilns of Shanxi is that
businessmen and local officials worked
hand-in-glove," the commentary said.
The
China Youth Daily went even further, calling the
uncovered slavery a "shocking disgrace", exposing
officials' dereliction of duty. "When a law is
massively undercut in its implementation so that
it becomes a worthless piece of paper, then it's
necessary to rethink the law itself," the paper
said.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
