China shocked by footage of child slaves being beaten and whipped

[kurth]

China shocked by footage of child slaves being beaten and whipped

By Clifford Coonan

It has made for horrifying viewing on Chinese state television - hundreds of child slaves beaten with shovels, whipped by thug overseers, guarded in concentration camp-like conditions by vicious dogs, sores festering on their bodies as they toiled without end in a brick factory in China's dusty heartland.

The TV footage shows hollow-eyed teenage boys, many of them kidnapped from their homes around China, sleeping on beds of brick in hellish dormitories, the doors tied shut with wire and the windows barred. As evidence of official neglect accumulated, the fate of the children prompted President Hu Jintao to demand an investigation into what happened in the brick kilns of Shanxi province.

But for now, the sympathies are with the slave workers. "We wanted to run but we couldn't. I tried once and was beaten," said one inmate, clearly traumatised from his experience. It is a familiar refrain, and an increasingly common one in central China. Recent days have seen a number of slave factories uncovered by police cracking down on slave labour, the dark underbelly of China's burgeoning economic growth. According to the official Xinhua news agency, around 35,000 police rescued 468 people after checking 7,500 kilns. They made up to 120 arrests.

Yang Aizhi, 46, has been looking for her 16-year-old son, who went missing on 8 March. After hearing he may have been kidnapped to work in the kilns, she went to more than 100 brick kilns in Shanxi and Henan and said that " most kilns were forcing children to do hard labour" and whipping them when they were too tired to work. Some of the child slaves were still wearing their school uniforms, she said. Ms Yang has yet to find her son. Chinese viewers have been transfixed by the horrific images emerging from Shanxi and Henan provinces. Many of the workers were mentally disabled, but were still forced to work 16 hours a day and given just 15 minutes to eat their food...

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article2663736.ece

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This story and many others like it have swept China in recent days in an unfolding labor scandal in central China that involves the kidnapping of hundreds of children, most in their teens but some as young as 8. The children, and many adults, reportedly, have been forced to work under brutal conditions — scantily clothed, unpaid and often fed little more than water and steamed buns — in the brick kilns of Shanxi Province...

As stories of forced labor at the brick kilns have spread, hundreds of parents have petitioned local authorities to help them find their children and crack down on the kilns. In some cases, according to Chinese news media reports, parents have also come together to try to rescue their children, placing little stock in the local authorities, who are sometimes in collusion with the operators of the kilns. Other reports have said that local authorities, including labor inspectors, have taken children from freshly closed kilns and resold them to other factories...

Zhang Xiaoying, 37, whose 15-year-old son disappeared in January, said she had visited over 100 brick factories during a handful of visits to Shanxi Province in search of him. “You just could not believe what you saw,” Ms. Zhang said in a telephone interview on Thursday. “Some of the kids working at these places were at most 14 or 15 years old.” The local police, she said, were unwilling to help. Outside one factory, she said, they even demanded bribes. “We finally got into that place, and I saw people hauling carts of bricks with great difficulty,” Ms. Zhang said. “Some of them were very small, and the ropes they pulled left tracks of blood on their shoulders and backs...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/16/world/asia/16china.html

[Catch22Dem]

1. Incredible. It does sound like the President is working to put an end to this

And the Chinese people must be simply horrified this is happening in their own back yard. When an economy explodes like theirs, some people will do ANYTHING to exploit it as much as possible. Sickening.

[Selatius]

2. It sounds like capitalist oppression has replaced communist oppression in China.

[malaise]

5. Indeed

reminds me of 19th century England.

[blondeatlast]

21. Ding! We have a winner. nt

[kurth]

23. "One of the brickyards was run by the son of a local Communist Party boss"

"A brickyard supervisor, Zhao Yanbing, confessed on camera to beating one worker, a man in his 50s, to death for not working hard enough."

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/news/112481.htm

[wicket]

49. you got that right

:cry:

[Orangepeel]

3. "But for now, the sympathies are with the slave workers"

Uh, what? For now? Jesus.

[Matariki]

35. yeah, that was an odd sentence.

i wondered about that too. wtf?

[hughee99]

56. Exactly... for now? WTF

What information could possible come out that would cause sympathies to shift elsewhere?

[Coventina]

4. China isn't ashamed of the practice, just that it's been exposed.

Something that widespread and organized? You can't tell me "the top" didn't know about it.

China's slogan: We have no respect for humans, animals or the environment. Money is all.

[malaise]

8. Please read the history of the poor Irish

and what the Brits did to them. This was business as usual until the christian socialists and socialists in England. Now that the socialists are on the back foot, this is business as usual across the globe.

Don't for a moment believe that this doesn't happen in the US.

http://www.iabolish.org/slavery_today/usa/states.html

[Coventina]

10. Not sure what your point is. I agree with you that Ireland was

a "slave state" to England, and genocide was practiced against the Irish by England.

I read your link on cases of slavery here in the US, but none of them are anything close to the scope of what is being revealed in China. Another crucial difference: I didn't see any that were supported by the collusion of the authorities.

[tsuki]

12. I didn't know the Chinese were Republican. nt

[acmavm]

6. The company I work for is opening two plants in China. One of the guys

I work with makes trips to China every month or so. And he says, exactly like I said on here not long ago (and got called a racist and xenophobe for saying this) but they DO NOT HAVE ANY RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE IN CHINA.

There are sooooooo many people. And historically the peasantry have been an expendable commodity, a resource to be used and abused by the rulers (any and all of the rulers) of China. What surprises me is that these stories are being printed. Are being circulated outside of China.

[Coventina]

7. I think a lot of people are ignorant about China, thinking that "China" is an ethnicity

so therefore to criticize China is "racist".

China is made up of many ethnicities, and to say that someone is "Chinese" is a national label, not an ethnic one.

What you say is very true, China has a history of being very authoritarian, and human life does not count for much. You owe your life to the state (whatever form it takes) and if the state wants to take your life, there is not much you can do.

[blondie58]

32. this brings to mind a horrific story that I heard on AAR

about organ harvesting of prisoners in China.

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/rm/2001/3792.htm

Some of these prisoners were scheduled for death, but others, mostly followers of Falun Dong were condemned to death and killed so their organs could be taken.

I really don't think that they value life.

[NewJeffCT]

For your company's sake

I hope they are either buying these plants outright, or else building them with their own money...

If they are merely investing in an already existing plant, you'll find that employees will soon start leaving & turning up at competing factories with ideas that used to be your company's intellectual property.

If you build the factory yourself, the employees tend to wait longer before they start doing that because there is some prestige in working for a non-Chinese company.

[otherlander]

58. That's not racist, as long as you differentiate

between the ruling class and the general population. I don't think you could say that the people in China who are being exploited have no value for human life.

[librechik]

9. Cheap labor conservatives would love to do that here, if they could

for now, they let the Chinese do it for them.

[My Good Babushka]

11. Every Western Nation is Complicit in This Abuse.

We shouldn't be trading with a country if they don't meet our labor standards. The idea of free trade is to bring the standard of living up around the world, and to pretend that's what we're doing, turning a blind eye to forced child labor, abductions, torture, is repugnant. I wish there was the political will to end these "policies".

[Coventina]

13. Agreed. But everyone loves cheap undies at Walmart!

*sigh*

The western consumer needs to be made aware of the TRUE price of these "cheap" goods.

[seemslikeadream]

14. We shouldn't be buying this stuff

Each and every one of us has to make a personal decision to stop being part of it

[My Good Babushka]

17. I think it's time to stop beating ourselves up individually about this.

I don't go around not buying underwear, or whatever, because it was made in China. Individual boycotts aren't going to cut it. That's why I think it's only a concerted and coordinated mobilization of political will that will make a change. Too many times individuals use their "individual boycotting power" as a source of puffing themselves up, to distinguish themselves from others who may only be able to afford Walmart, and what gets accomplished? Nothing.

[Coventina]

19. Um, the individual choices we make DO make a difference.

The problem needs to be tackled at ALL levels, and that includes the individual. It is especially important to target the individual western consumer (what do you think advertising is?), because of our societal focus on individual choice, destiny, etc. A mandate coming down from the government is generally viewed with resistance and hositility if not outright revolt.

[My Good Babushka]

24. I think too much emphasis has been placed on Western individuality

It has become a ridiculous characature of true independence. Maybe I just despair that individuals in this country will ever become informed enough to exert any sort of political will that doesn't begin with "let's smear the queer" or "git them immigrants".

[Coventina]

26. Despair over the ignorance of others does not exempt your responsibility

for your own choices.

Yes, too much emphasis has been placed on so-called "Western individuality", but the choices you make daily ARE important.

Every 25 miles you drive is another pound of pollution, etc.

[Maru Kitteh]

34. *stands and cheers!*

Mindlessly buying cheap Chinese goods and pretending you are NOT part of the problem while blaming the "ignorant" around you is a TEXTBOOK example of irrational thinking and self-serving bias.

Educated rationalizations only serve to cheapen the transactions further.

[Orrex]

47. Do you boycott every company that sells through Wal*Mart?

If not, then not only are you guilty of feeding the same abusive retail machine that you allege to decry; you're also guilty of hypocrasy.

[My Good Babushka]

41. My first responsibility is to my own.

and I make my choices accordingly. To think that any animal would do otherwise is silly. Maybe no one should enjoy anything as long as one poor miserable soul is suffering. You'll never get a majority of people to stop buying cheap clothes, shoes, etc, so you are just puffing up.

[Coventina]

43. Ah yes, the ever-popular logical fallacy of the "rings of responsibility/compassion"

with the self at the center, followed by a neat progression of enlarging circles, each representing a step further down on the priority list. Therefore, the self feels justified in making choices that may be damaging to someone or something on an outer ring (like Chinese children, for instance) if it benefits their own children.

If only the world were that simple. You wouldn't have to think that maybe the narrow-minded choices you make now are having serious impacts on the future. (Like choosing to eat orange roughy is going to make them extinct in about 20 years, because it takes them that long to mature, and we're eating ALL the mature fish now).

But go ahead and live in your *literally* self-centered world. I'm sure your great-grandchildren will be the better for it......

[Orrex]

45. Then you support placing the heaviest tax burden on those least able to pay it?

You're demanding that the individual, who in many cases is largely powerless to change anything concrete about the demands of his or her economic life, be held individually accountable for every wrong committed by Wal*Mart over a span of at least four generations.

I'm not sure whether that's simply retail quixotism or wholesale madness. Maybe it's both. But it certainly isn't realistic, whatever it is.

Is it preferable to you that I drive seventy-five miles round-trip (thereby producing the aforementioned three pounds of pollution) so that I can go to three separate stores and use more gas to buy the ten items that I could have bought at Wal*Mart for 20% less and just eight miles from home? While you're at it, why don't you skip fourteen meals each week just because someone somewhere doesn't have access to a Whole Foods Market?

Even if you and I and everyone we know merrily clasped hands and stopped shopping at Wal*Mart, it wouldn't make more than an infinitessimal dent in their bottom line. A group of self-congratulating individuals, no matter how puffed up they be, simply don't have the power to effect a change of magnitude sufficient to derail Wal*Mart or any multi-billion dollar corporation. If it makes you feel better to sit in your renewable, solar-powered tower and pass judgment on the masses, then knock yourself out.

The responsibility for correcting the problem of Wal*Mart (and its ilk) lays with the people with the power to correct it, not with the individual consumer who has to decide each week whether to buy food or pay for heating oil. Our duly elected officials can enact laws to stop the exploitive abuses going on in the House That Sam Built. You can't do much more than gripe about it and maybe organize an absurd "fill-a-cart" protest. And I simply can't justify the 75 mile drive.

Puff away, noble consumer. Puff away!

[Coventina]

48. Oh brother. Yeah, that's exactly what I said.

:eyes:

Well, gee, since we're all powerless to do anything, no reason to try to make mindful choices wherever we happen to be.

I didn't realize DU was populated by such defeatists.

[Orrex]

50. Feel better? Now how about answering my questions

In summary: why do you feel the burden should be borne by those least able to bear it? Is that the Liberal paradigm? I must have missed that meeting.

[Coventina]

53. Please show me where I said, "The burden should be born by those least able to bear it."

Listen, if you want to shop at Walmart, you don't have to answer to me. You've given your reasons why you believe it is the best choice for you, and if you are satisfied with those reasons there's no reason to try and put words in my mouth.

My point was, and remains, that we should consider our choices mindfully, and at the very least be aware of the consequences good or bad.

[Orrex]

54. Obviously that wasn't your literal statement, but it's the clear inference

You seem unable to accept that the problem must be addressed at the root level, ie., by the government, the only single entity with the power to address it. Instead, you bemoan the probability of resistance and revolt following government crackdown, which seems to me unlikely in the extreme. Perhaps that might occur if the government sought to regulate individual consumers or individual transactions, but no one is calling for that.

Instead, if the government would apply the law to Wal*Mart and its practices, many of the abuses currently going on in the corporation would become unprofitable and would thereafter be discontinued. Whatever else Wal*Mart may be, it is a machine for generating profit, and it obeys only the demands of that profit. The individual has no real power to affect Wal*Mart's bottom line, so the individual is effectively powerless to change the company's practices. Sure, there might be a case here or there some minor change is enacted in response to community demand, but nothing that would, at the end of the day, change how many digits precede the decimal in the ledger.

And pleas to "consider our choices mindfully" are lovely but ineffectual. Does it really make anything better if I buy cat litter at Costco instead of Wal*Mart? Does my mindfulness of the choice make any difference whatsoever? How so? By what magical mechanism is my mindfulness transmuted into an independent good? Does it polish my karma for the next time around? What you're asking seems no different from choosing to buy only "free range" chickens on the false premise that they're treated better or more humanely prior to their industrialized slaughter.

[Coventina]

57. I specifically stated that the problem needs to be addressed

on ALL levels! That was meant to include government as well, maybe you didn't understand that.

I find it very sad that you think that being aware of the consequences of our actions is "lovely but ineffectual." I do believe that when we know that bad or good comes from what we do that we tend to make better, wiser choices.

[Orrex]

60. There are a million levels on which to address the issue

Only one of which will make any difference at all. Therefore the other 999,999 do nothing of substance. If they make the individual "feel" better or make her think that she's making a difference, then whoopie. But let's not confuse individual feelgoodism with actual substantive change.

I find it very sad that you think that being aware of the consequences of our actions is "lovely but ineffectual."

My poignant awareness of consequence doesn't alter the fact that, in the grand scheme, my choice to spend $20 at Wal*Mart or at Whole Foods doesn't make a bit of difference.

I do believe that when we know that bad or good comes from what we do that we tend to make better, wiser choices.

"Better" is an entirely subjective and contingent notion, and in this context "wiser" is monumentally difficult to determine except in hindsight. Instead we should speak of what is necessary and what is economically feasible, because those are the criteria on which people have to base their choices.

[Coventina]

61. I do not understand your mentality at all.

But if you are so happy with yourself and your choices, I don't understand why you are so hyper-defensive of them.

Like I said before, if you feel that shopping at Walmart is your best choice, then shop at Walmart!

[Orrex]

63. Spare me the pop psychology

But if you are so happy with yourself and your choices, I don't understand why you are so hyper-defensive of them.

Oh, please. That's like saying "if there's nothing wrong with your foot, why do you object when I step on it?" Tell me where the line is between "responding to a post" and "hyper-defensive," and then we'll talk.

In fact what bothers me isn't that you or anyone else might complain about my choice to shop at Wal*Mart when I do; unless that person is helping to fund my family's budget each month, then that person can say whatever the hell he or she wants and it won't affect my economic choices in the least.

But what really bothers me is the righteous indignation that eructates from the DU depths every time a poster is insufficiently gung ho about some proposed boycott or similar dog and pony show. I'm also a little weary of the "pay more to get less because it's the 'right' thing to do" mentality.

If you want to leave the matter at that, so be it.

[Coventina]

64. Well spare ME the baseless accusations that I somehow want to punish the poor

just because you want to defend your own choice.

[My Good Babushka]

62. tee hee

Orrex, you are so sexy!
I think that what I want to say, but I'm not very good at it, is that we always tend to think that the answer to any problem is something we are going to solve as CONSUMERS, and I don't like to see consumers get puffed up just for being consumers. It would be different if someone were actively involved in organizing Chinese Labor Unions, risking life and limb, gaining international, political audience, that would be something to get puffed up about, and I think might be a quicker catalyst for change. Of course, that's also a good way to get your fool self killed.

[seemslikeadream]

20. I'm not talking about a boycott

I'm talking about personal responsibility. It has nothing to do with puffing oneself up it has to do with integrity.

[My Good Babushka]

25. I wasn't singling anyone out

Just making an observation that I've been exhorted to boycott a variety of products in my short time here, and it's kind of exasperating.

[OzarkDem]

39. I've been boycotting Chinese goods

but I understand there's a lot manufactured there that isn't labeled as such. Sounds like we need to do more.

[alfredo]

15. Slavery is a dirty word, Use this instead:

Private Stewardry of Labor. Doesn't that sound much nicer?

http://www.gatt.org/wharton.html The yes men did it again. http://www.theyesmen.org/

[WinkyDink]

16. That should read: "China is shocked---SHOCKED!---by footage...."

IYKWIM.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

36. about as shocked as Bush/Gonzales about Abu Ghraib.

bastards.

[NewJeffCT]

51. Nobody could have anticipated...

that people would treat their slaves that harshly.

[otherlander]

59. A lot of people are probably shocked that

this actually made it onto the government-controlled airwaves, in a country where the government is still denying that anything ever happened at Tienanmen Square.

[China_cat]

18. Gotta have the supplies to build those Wal-Marts cheap.

[krispos42]

22. China shocked by footage of child slaves... getting to the public airwaves!

They do work awfully hard to surpess that kind of stuff. Some members of some government ministry doubtless have tragically died of 9mm brain hemorrhages by now.

[ellisonz]

27. Made in America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Door_Notes

[entanglement]

28. China isn't sophisticated like us - we keep our slaves in the Mariana islands

n/t

[rasputin1952]

29. Jesus, a lot of us have known about this and fighting for ...

changes, but now that it is in th open, maybe there finally can be some changes. External internation pressure is one thing, but the people of China are finally being exposed to this horrendous abuse?

Change will have to coemem from w/in China, and I hope it comes quickly....:cry:

[momster]

30. Only Child Policy

I think that this will resonate with the Chinese people because so many of them have only been permitted one child. Therefore, if a child is kidnapped into this kind of nightmare, it becomes a loss to the whole society as well as to the family. There will undoubtedly be trials and executions now that this has come to light. Their government is not hugely responsible to the will of the people...but this sort of scandal can lead to bigger things so I'm sure they'll deal with it harshly. Whether that will stop this sort of thing all together is, of course, a different issue, esp. if government officials are getting kick-backs. There's still a great deal of poverty in China, even with the economic reforms that have made many people rich.

[Scooter24]

31. I hope this is resolved quickly

and those responsible are given harsh punishment.

This is the last thing China wants, especially with the 2008 Summer Olympics around the corner.

[Maru Kitteh]

33. Why is state television running this?

I know that, like most countries, in China the urban dwellers look down on rural people, but I don't get the goal of this. Why is the STATE interested in publicizing this abuse, which is nothing new?

[tbyg52]

37. That *is* an interesting question

Only two answers I can think of:

1) They feel they have no choice
2) They feel there's something in it for them

As to *why* either of these would apply, your guess is as good as mine.

[piesRsquare]

42. Perhaps the factories in question

are U.S. owned?

I've heard the Chinese have been "retaliating" against the US for actions taken in light of the tainted pet food ordeal. Example: The Chinese have recently started refusing shipmentss of pistachios from California.

Maybe state television is running this as anti-US "propaganda", to get THEIR population to boycott US goods?

[NewJeffCT]

55. It's possible, but

Shanxi Province is a landlocked province, and most US factories tend to be in coastal provinces so items can easily be shipped to the US - the port city of Guangzhou (Canton) is busier than the whole western seaboard of the US.

Most likely, some of the factory owners/leaders pissed off the wrong people of importance, and these people retaliated by turning them in to the authorities. (Probably didn't go along with the increase in protection fees, or had pissed off the wrong loan shark or something like that. Heck, maybe the guy wronged some mob-boss type's daughter or something)

[Selatius]

38. China is afraid of rage building among workers. This may be a way to show the government cares.

Each year more and more incidents between workers and the local authorities have been recorded. Most of them are borne out of abuses workers have had to endure at the hands of their employers.

[DRoseDARs]

40. It's no secret, even in China, that the Chinese government is straining to keep its rural areas...

...in line. The introduction of capitalism magnified the problem a hundred fold. They're allowing this story to get out so that they can show their people that they have genuine concern for the plight of the poor rural areas. Or at least "look" like they care. Either way, as long as the government is doing something to rescue these slaves that's about as much as we can hope for from them.

[NewJeffCT]

52. you're right on that

It's not just the introduction of capitalism, though, as I'm sure this sort of thing has gone on for centuries in China - the spread of information is really impossible to contain anymore with there being more cellphones in China than in the US, and with people having access to an even limited internet there. Not to mention they have a lot more contact with outsiders - either from newly wealthy and middle class Chinese going abroad for vacation and business, and others coming into China to do business there.

And, it's not just US companies there - many European companies have a large prescence in China, too: VW was probably the most common foreign car I saw when I went to China in 2004.

[JANdad]

44. As long as Americans act like this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1130609

We will have abuses like the OP pointed out...

[Beelzebud]

46. Say hello to our Global Free Market.

And they wonder why people protest EVERY G8 summit.