Posted on 04/29/2008 7:18:04 AM PDT by traumer
BEIJING (Reuters) - Thousands of children in southwest China have been sold into slavery like "cabbages", to work as labourers in more prosperous areas such as the booming southern province of Guangdong, a newspaper said on Tuesday.
China announced a nationwide crackdown on slavery and child labor last year after reports that hundreds of poor farmers, children and mentally disabled were forced to work in kilns and mines in Shanxi province and neighboring Henan.
"The bustling child labor market (in Sichuan province) was set up by the local chief foreman and his gang of 18 minor foremen, who each manage 50 to 100 child labourers," the Southern Metropolis Newspaper said.
"The children generally fall between the ages of 13 and 15, but many look under 10," it added.
The newspaper said 76 children from the same county, Liangshan, had been missing since the Chinese Lunar Year festival in February, 42 of whom had already left the region to work.
"The youngest kids found in the child labor market were only seven and nine years old," it said.
According to a contract exposed by an undercover reporter, a child laborer is paid 3.5 yuan ($0.50) an hour and must work at least 300 hours a month.
"These kids are robust and can do the toughest work," a foreman was quoted as saying, as he pulled a scrawny girl to stand beside him, the paper said.
Xinhua news agency said the county government had sent officials to rescue the children, but some were unwilling to leave, having been sold into slavery by their parents or volunteering to work themselves.
($1=7.002 Yuan)
WOW! Work “in kilns”?
Golly, where is the outcry from the black community in the U.S.??
And where is the female black messiah, Oprah, when the world really needs her?
Probably packing for the Olympics in China.
Yeah, but they have free health care.
What's Chinese for "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego?"
LOL.
Does this mean they can be found in the produce section of the grocery store? A serious story with that description tossed in makes me think that the writer's mind and heart will be on something else tomorrow.
I guess I was absent from history class the day they talked about cabbage slaves..
""Being different does not mean one is deficient. It simply means one is different, like snowflakes, like the diversity that God loves."
.........The ChiComs are just a different snowflake........./s
“Does this mean they can be found in the produce section of the grocery store?”
Either there or in chinese pottery.
But in good news- Thanks Heavens the Chinese have cracked down on foreign adoptions and slowed them to a crawl-
(big sarc)
The Chinese mistreating their children!! I’m shocked! Shocked I tell ya!
If this were Africa we would all be subjected to a three hour American Idol session.
This is only second to the great turnip slavery scandal. The great vegatable rebellion of 1427 freed the majority from opression. That is why to this day so few people eat turnips. It is in their memory.
You must be thinking of the Nat Turnip Rebellion.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sassy is going to love this. She already boycotts China & says they are vile among things...Wait until I read her this. Prayers for those poor children. Hmmm I wonder if they got this term from those Cabbage Patch dolls?
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