Combing the Brickyards for the Disappeared
By Andreas Lorenz
It's a story that has made headlines around the
world: Slave laborers have been found in Chinese brick factories. The
authorities have freed many of them, but some fear there could be
hundreds more being imprisoned, beaten and starved. Some parents have
begun searching for their sons on their own.
The 22-year-old farmer's son Ma Yongqiang from the village Yubao in
the fertile fields near China's Yellow River wanted finally to get
married, but his chances were limited. Before tying the knot, a groom
has to have a house or at least a decent job to show his prospective
father-in-law. But Ma didn't have either. Making things worse, he
didn't make a particularly handsome catch with his diminutive stature,
droopy right eyelid and his mere six years of education.
AFP
A group of freed slave workers outside a police station in the
northern Chinese town of Linfen after being freed from a brick factory
where they had been imprisoned.
And so he left his job at his uncle's construction company where he was
being trained to become a welder. His salary of 500 yuan a month,
roughly €50, wasn't nearly enough to find a bride.
That was just before Chinese New Year. On February 28, Ma boarded a
bus and traveled 60 kilometers to the old imperial city of Xi'an. Once
there he asked for directions to a job agency near the train station,
where he promptly got an offer. "I was supposed to become a watchman,"
Ma says. "They promised me 1,500 yuan a month."
The next morning he piled into a small car known in China as a
"breadbox" with three other men. During the trip Ma asked if he could
call home once more, but was told: "Not any more." That's when Ma
realized his job search had taken a turn for the worse.
Three Tortuous Months
His trip ended some 60 kilometers outside of Xi'an on the other side
of the Yellow River in a village called Houfeng in Shanxi province. Ma
and his three companions were then imprisoned in a narrow space already
occupied by others. Three tortuous months followed.
From 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. each day, Ma was forced to push a cart
filled with bricks. The first meal was at 2:30 p.m. and the second only
after the workday was done. "We got cabbage and steamed buns," says Ma.
He was never paid for his labor. The foremen holding them captive beat
anyone who was too slow, complained, or even simply talked to other
laborers. One morning at 3 a.m. he managed to escape. He fled through a
pepper plantation in a remote valley.
But it was all in vain. Ma got disoriented and found himself right
back at the brick factory. The barking of a guard dog gave him away.
The foremen beat him while screaming: "We'll have to keep you chained
up." Ma begged on his knees for forgiveness, promising he'd never try
to escape again.
Mercifully, it was all over a few weeks later. In early June, the
police raided the factory and freed the laborers. They slapped 100 yuan
in Ma's hand and told him to take the bus home. He did what the men in
the blue uniforms told him.
Shady Job Agencies
Ma is only one of several slave laborers that China's authorities
have discovered working in brick factories in Shanxi and Henan
provinces in recent weeks. Pictures of the raids showing confused and
abused men and youths shocked the world. The photos showed a different
China from the one normally seen in the West -- those portraying the
unstoppable rise of an economic superpower. This China on display was
an undeveloped country from a pre-industrial age. The proud hosts of
the 2008 Olympic Games are now confronted with the ugly accusation that
they've tolerated hordes of forced laborers for far too long -- modern
slaves sold off as chattel by shady job agencies.
DER SPIEGEL
China has been cracking down on slave labor.
Chinese intellectuals like Hu Shuli, the editor in chief of the business magazine
Caijing,
are questioning whether the country -- with its poorly paid labor
market, exploitation of migrant workers, and even outright slavery --
is denying many of its citizens "the right to freedom and dignity." Has
China after almost 58 years of communist rule completely lost its soul?
"These incidents are truly ignominious for a civilized society," says
Jia Fenyong, a columnist for the state-run news agency Xinhua.
Those looking into the causes of the scandal have uncovered the
unsavory shadow world existing alongside China's remarkable economic
rise in recent years. It is a realm of provincial cities hoping to join
the country's march of modernization and countless villages that have a
few simple brick buildings, horrible roads, and inhabitants that can
barely read and write.
It's here that traditional family clans and mafia-like organizations
have the say. Police have little power relative to local business
magnates. No one is surprised when an official from a regional
supervisory agency sells a recently freed young man from one brick
factory to the next -- and charges him 300 yuan for the service.
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