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More than 200 rescued from brick kiln slavery

www.chinanews.cn 2007-06-15 09:20:22

(Source: China Daily)

June 15 - Rescue teams comprising a staggering 35,000 police officers in
Henan Province have freed 217 people, including 29 children, from slavery
in illegal brick kilns - but more are believed to be held captive,
provincial police said on Thursday.
The laborers were abducted by human traffickers and taken to the kilns,
where they were beaten, starved and forced to work long hours without
payment, according to the police.
Up to 120 suspects have been detained.
Reacting to media reports in the past week on the plight of the
trafficked children, many of them from Henan, held captive in the
province and neighboring Shanxi, Henan police started inspecting brick
kilns in the province on Saturday.
Until Tuesday, police checked 7,500 kilns, and the campaign continues.
Qin Yuhai, vice-governor and police chief of Henan, said: "We must do
everything we can to fight human trafficking and rescue those held
captive."
The provincial police bureau told China Daily yesterday it had asked its
counterparts in Shanxi to help with the rescue; and reported the case to
the Ministry of Public Security.
Spokesman Wu Heping said the ministry has asked for more information from
the provincial bureaus in Henan and Shanxi on the alleged slave labor.
Wang Zhaoguo, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of
China (CPC) Central Committee, and also the president of the All-China
Federation of Trade Unions, had ordered the investigation.
The Shanxi Evening News reported that Zhang Mingqi, a member of the
federation's secretariat, expressed "great shock" over the "horrific"
case when he visited a kiln in Hongtong of Shanxi on Wednesday.
Police freed 31 workers from the kiln late last month, with the youngest
aged 14. One worker was earlier beaten to death, the report said.
The Ministry of Public Security has issued a warrant for the arrest of a
kiln overseer, Heng Tinghan, who is at large.
The slave labor issue first surfaced last Thursday when 400 fathers in
Henan - who believed their children had been sold to work in illegal
brick kilns in Shanxi - sought help online.
The fathers said in a petition that they had "spent all their money and
risked their lives to go deep into the mountains looking for their
children, the youngest only eight". They managed to rescue about 40 but
said there were at least 1,000 child laborers still in Shanxi.
They said some children had been isolated from the outside world for
seven years, and some were beaten and maimed when they tried to escape.
The backs of some were burnt by supervisors with burning red bricks.
The International Labour Organization Office for China and Mongolia
yesterday said it would keep a close eye on developments in the case, and
called for stronger child protection.
China's Criminal Law stipulates that anyone who illegally detains another
person and causes severe body injury shall receive a minimum sentence of
three years. Capital punishment can be meted out if death is involved.

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