Posted on 06/15/2007 7:25:46 AM PDT by DogByte6RER
Police rescue further 220 slave workers in N China
www.chinaview.cn
2007-06-15 16:15:02
HONGTONG, Shanxi, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Police in north China on Friday announced they had rescued a further 220 slave workers from brick kilns and other illegal workplaces, such as small iron and coal mines.
The rescues of the workers, all in Shanxi Province, brings the total number of slave workers reported freed in China to 468 in the last month.
They include Thursday's widely reported rescue of 31 people who had been freed on May 27 by the police from a brick kiln in Hongtong, a county about 240 km south to Taiyuan, the provincial capital of Shanxi.
Police in Henan Province also rescued 217 people, including 29 children, and arrested 120 people in a four-day crackdown campaign involving more than 35,000 police checking 7,500 kilns.
Sources from Shanxi Provincial Public Security Bureau said they raided 769 brick kilns, small coal and iron mines in Linfen, Yuncheng and Jincheng cities, where most of Shanxi's brick kilns are concentrated, after May 27 when the police freed 31 migrant workers who were forced to work as slaves in a brick kiln in Hongtong.
It is unknown whether any children were among the slave workers rescued in Shanxi.
Police have also detained 38 people who were suspected of allegations including kidnapping and forced labor, said the sources.
Thirty-two people from 12 regions across China were enticed or kidnapped and trucked to work as slaves in a brick kiln in Caosheng Village in Guangshengsi Township, Hongtong.
The kiln was located in the courtyard of Wang Dongji, the Communist party secretary of the Caosheng Village of Hongtong County. The kiln's boss was Wang Bingbing, the son of Wang Dongji, according to local sources.
The workers were not paid and were forced to work 15 to 16 hours a day and finish their meals within 15 minutes. The workers slept on the ground in a dark room without heating in the winter.
Nine of the 32 were mentally disabled.
One worker was allegedly beaten to death in November last year.
Yang Aizhi, a 46-year-old mother, was said to be one of the people who alerted the public to the scandal.
Her 16-year-old son went missing on March 8 and she has been searching for him ever since. On her travels she heard that the child might have been kidnapped and forced to work at kilns in Shanxi.
Yang went to more than 100 kilns in Shanxi and discovered that "most kilns were forcing children to do hard labor", she was quoted as saying in the Southern Weekly. Some children were still wearing their school uniforms.
When the children were too tired to push carts, they were whipped by taskmasters, said Yang.
Yang tried to rescue some of the children but was threatened by kiln owners. She has yet to find her son.
Yang and other parents who suspect their children have been kidnapped and forced to work in illegal kilns told their story to a TV station in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan Province, in early May.
In a raid carried out on May 27, police in Shanxi freed the 31 migrant workers, and detained five suspects. Among the detainees were Wang Bingbing and four others.
Police are still hunting for three alleged accomplices, including Heng Tinghan, from central China's Henan.
The bank accounts of Wang Bingbing's brick kiln have been frozen.
Nine of the rescued workers have returned home and 15 are on the way home. Seven others disappeared after they got free.
"The rescued workers from the brick kiln of Caosheng Village will get back their wages in arrears," said Cheng Jinzhong, vice chairman of Hongtong County Association of Trade Unions.
Local authorities have decided that each migrant worker will be paid for 1,410 yuan (about 200 U.S. dollars) monthly, three times the minimum monthly salary standard in Hongtong.
"Hongtong County Government will pay in advance part of the money needed to pay off migrant workers' wages because Heng Tinghan, the taskmaster of the Caosheng village brick kiln and a native of Henan, has escaped," said Cheng.
Ten teams consisting of workers from different departments of Hongtong County government will leave for 12 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, where hometowns of the 31 migrant workers are located, on Saturday to deliver these migrant workers' wages, plus 1,000 yuan in compensation and a written apology to each worker.
Zhang Baoshun, secretary of Shanxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), has asked local authorities to be firm in cracking down on illegal employers across the province, including brick kiln owners and freeing migrant workers who were forced to work for the illegal employers.
A province-wide key task operation has been launched in Shanxi following's Zhang Baoshun's directive. There have been raids on coal mines, brick kilns, private contractors and small enterprises after media reports revealed that hundreds of children in Henan Province had been kidnapped and forced to work in kilns in Shanxi.
These guys forgot that the communists running the show in China live the the rule "Do as I say...Not as I do."
Related article:
“China police rescue 248 people from slavery in brick kilns”
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-06/15/content_6244314.htm
Another related article:
“Central China police rescue 217 from slavery in brick kilns”
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-06/14/content_6243196.htm
Wonder if these bricks were being made to be sold at Wal-Mart?
Geez the term "Slave" is so last century.
Get with the times, dammit, todays new term for slaves is the more palatable "Undocumented Worker."
China needs to get a heart.
Ah yes, but as long as the product is cheap at Wal Mart, its all good...
These are not the droids you’re looking for... move along... move along.
Our nation has completely failed humanity by granting this and other nations like it open access to our markets.
We need to bring these people here to America to do the slave work Americans won’t do.
Doesn’t Karl Rove want to cultivate the Chinese vote? There are a lot more of them potential voters than Mexicans, aren’t there?
Don’t use slaves. The government hates competition........
The commies trying to spruce up their image ahead of the Olympics.
</Sarc>
I think the philosophy behind opening our markets is that a rising tide raises all boats, so to speak. IOW, increased prosperity through capitalism elevates the society in more ways than one. In the instance of China, it doesn’t exactly seem to be working.
I agree with some other posters that the Chinese should not be hosting the Olympics. What a farce. IMHO, just like Berlin, 1936.
Rising tides lift all boats is nice rhetoric, but its simply flinging trade wide open does NOT doe this.
Trade shoudl be bilateral agreements between two nations, especially where two nations are dealing with large inequities, not only in wages, but in civil liberties, political freedoms, worker protection, etc etc.
The lesser nation should be forced to earn access to the more prosperous nations markets by being offered carrots to improve such differences. IE... as you improve your worker protections to these levels, you may import more product... as you reform your banking system, you may import more product, etc etc etc... The current “free trade” model does none of this. China keeps its currency deflated intentionally for trade benefit, pollutes the earth wantonly, has no worker protection enforcement, etc etc etc.
What this nation has done on trade in the last 20 or so years is economically and morally repugnant.
I agree with your assessment and some of your ideas.
The rising tide raising all boats is nice rhetoric, but it is exactly that, rhetoric. It’s really all about money/greed. I’m hoping there’s some behind the scenes “big socioeconomic plan”, but I kind of doubt it.
You can’t legislate morality. Morality starts in the family, at church and in school. IMHO, A corrupt society can never flourish economically.
Slavery? Bull!
Can’t be slavery if it wasn’t in the US. Ask any public school kid.
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