China's brick factories use child slaves

[aneeshm]

Re: Re: China's brick factories use child slaves

Originally posted by BlackCat


Yeah, but at least they seem to do something about it. Such atrocities could though never happen in a hindu society.

Please, DON'T try google on "child slaves india 2007"

And you are lynching negroes.

[BlackCat]

Re: Re: Re: China's brick factories use child slaves

Originally posted by aneeshm


And you are lynching negroes.

Of course we do - it's a perfect entertainment to the afternoon tea, and as a midnight snack we of course eat babies.

[aneeshm]

You do get the reference, don't you?

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by aneeshm
You do get the reference, don't you?

Using an old cold war joke (that I didn't know, but thanks for the link ) to belittle the problems at you own doorstep is quite amusing.

I guess that it's easier to maintain a belief in the superiority of hindu culture when it's possible to find examples of similiar in other countries.

[Zkribbler]

Re: Re: Re: China's brick factories use child slaves

Originally posted by aneeshm
And you are lynching negroes.

I prefer the old Cold War joke: "In the Soviet Union, we have no discrimination. We're prejudiced against everybody."

[DaShi]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/21/world/asia/21china.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

June 21, 2007
Memo From Shanghai
Growing China Says Little of Child Slavery’s Role
By HOWARD W. FRENCH
SHANGHAI, June 20 — There is a certain ritualistic aspect to stories in China like the one this past week about the hundreds of people, many of them teenagers or even younger, who were forced to work under slavelike conditions in the brick kilns of Shanxi Province. First, Chinese readers are horrified by a picture of their country that many say they hardly recognize, then a villain is rounded up, and finally, after a torrent of unusually blunt and emotionally charged news reports and editorials, the matter drops from view, ensuring that the larger issue goes unresolved.

The villain in the case was Heng Tinghan, the manager of the brick works, who was arrested Saturday and promptly cemented his bad-guy image by protesting that it was a “fairly small thing” to beat and abuse underage workers, and to deprive them of pay. With his arrest, and the urging of the Central Office of External Communication of the Communist Party, the story then died away. But Chinese newspapers are constantly peppered with accounts of the death and injury of child laborers, and of disputes that arise because of unusually low wages, or the withholding of pay, with no region of the country exempted.

Just within a week or so of the brick kiln story, there were several reports of labor abuses against children. A 14-year-old boy was killed in an explosion while filling a tank with napthalene at a chemical factory near Nanjing. A 15-year-old boy was dragged into a cotton gin and crushed to death in Nanchang after working a succession of 20-hour days. And 70 girls from rural Henan Province were brought by their teacher to work at a grape processing plant in Ningbo, where their hands bled from working 16-hour shifts.

From the densely packed factory zones of Guangdong Province to the street markets, kitchens and brothels of major cities, to the primitive factories of China’s relatively poor western provinces, child labor is a daily fact of life, experts here say, and one that the government, preoccupied with economic growth, has traditionally turned a blind eye to.

“In order to achieve modernization, people will go to any ends to earn money, to advance their interests, leaving behind morality, humanity and even a little bit of compassion, let alone the law or regulations, which are poorly implemented,” said Hu Jindou, a professor of economics at the University of Technology in Beijing. “Everything is about the economy now, just like everything was about politics in the Mao era, and forced labor or child labor is far from an isolated phenomenon. It is rooted deeply in today’s reality, a combination of capitalism, socialism, feudalism and slavery.”

Under President Hu Jintao, the Communist Party has made the creation of what it calls a harmonious society the government’s main watchword. As part of that effort, in fact, a major revision of laws governing the rights of children took effect just this month, prompting the country’s vice premier, Wu Yi, to call their adoption “a festive present for the mainland’s 300 million children.”

Chinese labor market experts say, however, that the country remains far from achieving even the spirit of the new law, which mandates that adequate time be set aside for sleep, entertainment and sports. In fact, many say, an overwhelming emphasis on economic growth directly contradicts it.

This was underscored by another story that emerged the same week the kiln factory abuses were revealed. Students from the Dayin Middle School in Sichuan Province, in China’s interior, complained in newspaper reports about a work-study program in which they were shipped to an electronics assembly plant hundreds of miles away, in the industrial boomtown of Dongguan, which is near the coast.

The students told about having to work 14-hour days, with mandatory overtime, and having their wages withheld. In some instances, they said, those who wished to quit the program had no way of telephoning their families or paying for transportation home.

“My daughter promised to call every week, but she’s been gone for three weeks and has only called once,” said Zhang Ronghua, the mother of a 15-year-old Sichuan student. “She said that she wants to come home, that she’s worked from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. and that she’s constantly busy and tired.”

Yuan Guangyao, the deputy manager of the factory, defended his company’s arrangement with the school. “This internship is a form of cooperation between our company and the school, or rather with the county,” he said. “I’ve been to that county myself, and I found the local people were very poor, so this initiative of having students work here is a win-win strategy for both of us.”

But many of the parents see a different picture, suspecting that the factory and the school are profiting at their children’s expense.

Liu Kaiming, a longtime researcher on labor conditions in Guangdong Province, where Dongguan is, said the employment of students who were paid low wages and forced to work overtime was commonplace. “In Dongguan, you can even see children of 12 and 15 working in toy factories,” he said. “These kids are basically from adjacent, underdeveloped provinces and they are brought by their teachers. There are laws forbidding child labor, but for work-study programs there are no specific rules, and no limitations on age, working hours or job description.”

Other experts said local officials were reluctant to take any steps that would impede economic growth. Traditionally, high growth rates and social stability have been the main criteria for promotion of local officials, and in relatively poor regions providing employment, even for youths, is seen as contributing to these goals.

Indeed, in the Shanxi brick kiln case, the owner of the factory that was the focus of most of the media attention was a local Communist Party leader.

Local officials also take advantage of overlapping jurisdictions to evade responsibility. In Sichuan Province, the local officials said they had no say over working conditions negotiated between the school and the factory.

Officials at the provincial labor bureau in Guangdong Province said that labor arrangements made by a school should be regulated by the Education Ministry. The ministry did not respond to telephone calls or faxed questions on the matter.

“Each department or ministry only cares about itself,” said Jin Yingjie, a labor law expert at China University of Political Science and Law. “If the law concerns its own interest, it will make an effort to apply it. But when an issue involves the intersection of more than one department, they tend to shirk responsibility.”

Well, I was wrong. Looks like nothing is really being done about these things. This is what has always frustrated me with China. Nearly everytime there seems to be a sign of progress, it is only an illusion to maintain the status quo (a cruel, oppressive, and backward status quo). Sometimes, I clearly expect it, like China's environmental initiatives. I know they are a load of bull. But other times, I believe China is improving beyond simply becoming richer. Women's rights and children's rights used to be a prime examples.