After a crackdown in the provinces of Shanxi and Henan, child slaves that were overworked and beaten have been rescued in China.

After media publicity on child labor in brick kilns, there were major revisions to the laws governing children’s rights in China. According to Predident Hu Jintao, the new laws include mandated adequate sleep time as well as time allowed for entertainment and sports.

• Traditionally officials tend to ignore the plight of child laborers as their focus has been on economic growth and many will go to any lengths to achieve it.

• Overlapping jurisdictions and corrupt officials complicate matters further and some schools offer questionable “internships” between companies and schools. Many people seem to be profiting off poor children being forced to work for 14 hours or more in slave like conditions.

• Some officials have suggested that the Education Ministry should regulate labor arrangements through schools but so far the ministry has had no comment. In a recent high profile brick kiln case the owner of a factory in the province of Shanxi was also a local Communist party leader.

• Parents are understandably outraged and upset since many of them did not hear from their children after they went to work even though they had agreed to call regularly.

Some children as young as 12 have been kidnapped and forced to work in slave like conditions. Doors are bolted shut, windows barred and many of their beds are made of simple bricks. They are being beaten and whipped if they are too tired to work or try to escape. Vicious dogs are guarding the brick factories to ensure people cannot escape. 13 children have been reported to have died from overwork and abuse in Shanxi. Most of them are teenagers or younger and look starved and exhausted. TV footage on Chinese state television has shocked and horrified the country and spurred President Hu Jintao into ordering a massive investigation and crackdown on the suspected brick kilns holding slave laborers in the provinces of Shanxi and Henan.

Recent Raids, Arrests and Rescues:

• 468 slave laborers have been freed in the last month

• 120 people were arrested after 35,000 police checked 7,500 kilns.

• 217 of them were freed from Henan and 29 of them were minors.

• 251 of them were freed from Shanxi and 80 of them were minors.

A journalist covering the scandal estimated 1,000 minors from Henan were trapped into slave labor at Shanxi brick kilns. That such a plight could happen to children seems inconceivable but many poor people raised with Communist rule are not accustomed to demanding legal rights. Some parents have been reportedly brushed off by police while searching for their children and some that have been freed have been compensated, but not with much.

Sources:The Independent (China shocked by footage of child slaves being beaten and whipped, Clifford Coonan, June 16 2007), The New York Times (Howard W. French, June 21, 2007), The Record (Chinese Police rescue 100's of slave labourers, Associated Press, June 16, 2007)