The Ministry of Public Security has sent a team of criminal investigators and discipline inspectors to probe the slavery scandal and alleged dereliction of duty by police officers in north-central China, senior police officials said yesterday.

The eight-member team left Beijing over the weekend for Shanxi and Henan provinces, where illegal kilns and slave laborers were discovered. The team will be in charge of investigations and coordinate police work.

It will also look into alleged corruption of the local police force, ministry spokesman Wu Heping said at a press conference.

He said anyone found having sheltered or turned a blind eye to the illegal kilns will be disciplined, even punished. "The ministry will not cover up a single case," he said.

Wu said the ministry will also work with other departments to set up a long-term mechanism to prevent such incidents from happening again.

According to reports many kilns which forced laborers - some as young as eight - to work 16 hours a day without pay, have connections with the local police.

Parents, who went to look for their missing children, said they had appealed to the police but received little help.

"Some officers even prevented us from saving children that were not ours. They told us to mind our own business," according a letter posed online and signed by 400 fathers whose children went missing early this month.

The police bureau in Guangsheng in Hongtong County of Shanxi yesterday admitted dereliction of duty by one officer named Xi Gendan. It said Xi was responsible for the security of Caosheng Village, but had never visited the kiln in the village.

Late last month, 31 workers were freed from the village kiln. One laborer had been nearly beaten to death.

Zheng Baigang, deputy director of the ministry's discipline inspection bureau, said the bureau had noted all the allegations, but investigation and confirmation needed time.

The ministry said local police in Shanxi are still seeking more than 20 people in connection with the slave labor scandal.

So far, about 160 suspects have been detained in Shanxi and Henan.

By Sunday night, about 45,000 policemen had raided more than 8,000 kilns and small coalmines in the two provinces, and freed 591 workers, including 51 children. The raids are still going on.

At another press conference yesterday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the government strongly opposes any infringement on the rights of laborers, and is totally against the use of child labor.

(China Daily June 20, 2007)