A total of 1,340 people, 367 of whom were mentally handicapped,
have been rescued from forced labor since the brick kiln scandal
was exposed in June, a joint investigation group said
yesterday.
During a campaign to crack down on illegal kilns, mines and
workshops, 277,000 work units employing 12.67 million workers were
inspected, Sun Baoshu, vice-minister of Labor and Social Security
and head of the investigation group, said.
The group was made up of staff from the Ministry of Labor and
Social Security, the Ministry of Public Security and the All-China
Federation of Trade Unions.
Police found that 67,000, or 24.2 percent of kilns, mines and
workshops inspected nationwide were operating without licenses.
They registered 185,000 cases, more than half concerned
employing workers without contracts and, in 37 percent of the
cases, the owner failed to provide workers with social security
insurance.
A total of 147 people were arrested and 98,000 working units
were ordered to sign contracts with 1.5 million workers and pay
overdue salaries and compensation totaling 130 million yuan (US$17
million).
The use of forced laborers hit the headlines after more than 400
parents in central China's Henan Province posted an online plea for
help in rescuing their children who had been kidnapped to work in
small brick kilns in Shanxi and Henan.
An employee of a brick kiln in Shanxi has been sentenced to
death for manslaughter and unlawful detention, the foreman was
sentenced to life imprisonment and boss of the kiln was given a
jail term of nine years. A total of 95 Party officials in Shanxi
have been punished.
The publication of the labor investigation report coincides with
the opening of the International Labour Organization (ILO)'s Asian
Employment Forum aimed at promoting decent work.
The forum in Beijing is the first major gathering of senior
government, labor and employer representatives from 20 countries in
the Asia-Pacific since the launch of the Decent Work Decade at the
ILO's Asian regional meeting last year.
Initially proposed by ILO director-general Juan Somavia in 1999,
decent work "refers to sustainable work opportunities for women and
men in conditions of freedom, equality, security and human
dignity".
(China Daily August 14, 2007)
