Five suspects have been arrested for forcing laborers in a north
China brick kiln to do backbreaking manual labor, according to a
central government work team investigating the case in Shanxi Province on Monday afternoon.
Those in custody are kiln boss Wang Bingbing, foreman Heng
Tinghan, and hatchet men Zhao Yanbing, Heng Mingyang, and Liu
Dongsheng. The five have confessed to the charges, local police
said.
Police are searching for three other suspects, namely Zhou
Xueping, Chen Zhiming, and Jin Xingjian.
Police investigations showed Heng Tinghan, 42, a native of
central Henan Province, lured 31 rural laborers from
railway stations from Zhengzhou in Henan and Xi'an in Shaanxi as well as Yuncheng in Shanxi Province
with promises to help them find jobs, and then forced them to work
in the brick kiln at Hongtong County of Shanxi Province.
Heng sub-contracted the kiln in Caosheng Village from Wang
Bingbing in February 2006.
The laborers were forced to work long hours on meager rations,
dogs were hired to prevent them from escaping, and many received
burns and other injuries working in the hot kiln.
One person died in November 2006 and his death is being
investigated.
Wang Dongyi, father of Wang Bingbing, has been fired as party
chief of Caosheng Village.
"We are investigating whether other officials were involved,"
said Zhang Mingqi, secretary of the All-China Federation of Trade
Unions.
The work team consisting of officials from the Ministry of
Public Security, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security and the
All-China Federation of Trade Unions is in Shanxi to investigate
the case.
Sun Baosu, vice minister of labor and social security and head
of the work team, said the case "had an extremely negative impact,”
and pledged to find out the truth, rescue all victims and punish
the perpetrators.
The local government has settled wages, paid compensation for
victims, and sent apology letters to the workers, said Zhang.
"We are in touch with the family of the dead worker," said
Zhang, adding that 23 of the 31 victims have been contacted and
that police are still searching for the other eight.
Chinese police have detained 168 people accused of holding
workers in slavery under appalling conditions at small brick kilns
and mines in Shanxi and Henan.
By Saturday, 315 people -- including 22 aged under 18, had been
freed after police raided more than 3,700 small brick kilns and
collieries in Shanxi, the country's leading coal base, many of
which were unlicensed.
The use of slave workers hit the headlines after a
"call-for-help" letter was posted on the Internet earlier this
month by more than 400 parents in Henan who believed their missing
children had been sold to the small brick kilns as slave
workers.
(Xinhua News Agency June 19, 2007)