http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-06/15/content_6244314.htm
2007-06-15 03:10:49
China police rescue 248 people from slavery in brick kilns
Chinese policemen help a young worker to leave a brick kiln in
Hongtong County, Linfen City, North China's Shanxi Province in late May 2007.
(Photo: Xinhuanet)
ZHENGZHOU, June 14 (Xinhua) -- Chinese police have rescued 248 people
who had been forced to work as 'slaves' in brick kilns, while widespread
crackdown is underway.
Police in central Henan Province have rescued 217 people, including
29 children, and detained 120 suspects after a 4-day crackdown campaign
involving more than 35,000 police to check 7,500 kilns in the province.
In the area around Xinxiang, north of Zhengzhou, police raided 20
brick kilns on Saturday and rescued 23 people including 16 children.
Laborers had been enticed or kidnapped and transported to the kilns
by human traffickers. Upon arrival they were beaten, starved and forced to work
long hours without pay.
In the past two weeks, Chinese media have exposed the plight of
children held captive in brick kilns in neighboring Shanxi Province and photos
of distraught parents have appeared in the press.
It is reported that 400 Henan fathers have went to the remote
mountains in Shanxi to track down missing sons who they believe were sold to
kilns.
Qin Yuhai, vice governor and police chief of Henan, said "we must do
everything we can to fight human trafficking and rescue those being held
captive."
In north China's Shanxi Province, police have rescued 31 people who
were forced to work under extremely cruel conditions in brick kilns and
detained five suspects.
Wang Bingbing, owner of an illegal brick kiln, and four accomplices,
were detained after police found they had forced 32 people who had been
abducted or lured from railways stations of Henan and Shanxi.
Nine of the 32 were mentally disabled. One worker, born as mentally
handicapped, was beaten to death last November, local police said.
Guarded by taskmaster and dogs, they were forced to work 15 to 16
hours per day, and finish their meals of steamed bread and water within 15
minutes. The workers sleep on the ground in a darkroom without heating system
in freezing winter.
Police are still hunting for another suspect from Henan.
The kiln was based in Caosheng Village of Hongtong County. Wang was
the son of a village head, according to Wang Xingwang, deputy chairman with the
provincial workers' union.
The kiln's bank accounts have been frozen.
Yang Aizhi, a 46-year-old mother, was 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 in early May.
Zhang Wenlong was one of the 31 people rescued from the kiln in
Caosheng village. Zhang, 17, called the kiln he had worked at as "prison".
Zhang says he was abducted in March from the Zhengzhou Railway
Station and worked at a kiln for three months until he burned his hand on
bricks that had not yet cooled.
Zhang was watched by thugs and six ferocious dogs, making it
impossible to escape.
His taskmaster refused him hospital treatment but provided medicines
that had expired.
The county government has allocated 200,000 yuan (about 26,300 U.S.
dollars) to provide a salary to the victims.
Nine of the rescued have returned home and government officials are
accompanying 15 others to their homes. Seven of the people who were rescued
have disappeared as police believe they may have been so traumatized they
simply fled.
The crackdown campaign was launched in 11 cities of Shanxi. There
have been raids on coal mines, brick kilns, private contractors and small-sized
enterprises after media reports revealed that hundreds of children in Henan
Province had been kidnapped and forced to work in kilns in Shanxi.
The crackdown is still underway in case more people are suffering in
kilns and other illegal workplaces.
+++++
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6752507.stm
Last Updated: Thursday, 14 June 2007, 12:29 GMT 13:29 UK
Mass rescue of 'slaves' in China
Some 31 "slaves" were rescued at a brickworks last week
More than 200 people, including 29 children, have been rescued after
working as "slaves" in brick kilns in central China, state media reports.
Tens of thousands of police moved in on the kilns in Henan province,
arresting 120 people, Xinhua news agency said.
They acted after media reports claimed that children were being forced to
work in kilns in neighbouring Shanxi province, Xinhua said.
Photos of distraught parents were also published.
Xinhua said that, following the reports of child labour, some 35,000
police were despatched to the 7,500 kilns in Henan.
They reportedly rescued 217 people, including 29 children.
Xinhua said the victims had been "enticed or sent by human traffickers to
the kilns", where they were "beaten, starved and forced to work long hours
without payment".
Henan's police governor Qin Yuhai vowed to "do everything we can to fight
human trafficking and rescue those held captive".
Dirty and disorientated
There have been similar cases in a neighbouring province which received
national media coverage after parents of the children launched an online
campaign to find them.
On Wednesday, 400 men from Henan made an online appeal for help in their
bid to rescue their children from brickworks hidden deep in the mountains of
Shanxi.
They said they had "risked their lives" to rescue about 40, but believed
at least 1,000 children had been kidnapped for sale to traffickers.
"We were shocked by what we saw," they were quoted by Chinese media as
saying.
"Some children had been isolated from the outside world for seven years,
and some were beaten and maimed because they tried to escape, and the backs of
some were burnt by supervisors with burning red bricks."
Last week, 31 disorientated workers were rescued from a brickwork factory
in Shaanxi.
They were reported to have been duped into working at the factory, and
faced a harsh regime in which they worked unpaid for 20 hours a day with only
bread and water in return.
Police said that when they raided the works they discovered foul-smelling
workers, who had been wearing the same clothes for a year.
Eight were reported to be so traumatised by their experiences that they
were only able to remember their names
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
