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China investigates 'slave labour' factory
Chinese police are hunting a factory boss who used made mentally handicapped people work in slave-like conditions, according to reports.
The workers were given no protective gear and ate the same food as the factory leader's dogsPhoto: DBIMAGES
5:27PM GMT 14 Dec 2010
The boss of a construction materials factory in China's western Xinjiang province, hired about a dozen people, many of whom are mentally disabled, to grind rocks into powder, but did not provide clothing, pay or enough food for the workers, Chinese website tianshannet.com reported.
The reports cited authorities as saying the workers were given no protective gear and ate the same food as the factory leader's dogs.
He disappeared before police raided the factory on Monday morning, and may have fled with the workers – some of whom had been enslaved for up to four years – to Chengdu city in Sichuan province, the report said. His wife was being held by police.
Incidents of forced labour have shocked China in the past, with slave bosses often preying on the mentally handicapped.
In 2007, more than 1,000 people were found working as slaves in brick kilns in Shanxi province, following a father's desperate search for his missing teenage son. The central government vowed to prevent similar offences, but cases are occasionally reported by Chinese media.
Last December, Chinese human traffickers targeted mentally disabled people from the southwestern Sichuan province countryside, luring them into dangerous employment contracts and sometimes even killing them in mine accidents for compensation.
"I have not asked the boss for the money yet," one worker who had been labouring at the factory for four years was cited by tianshannet.com as saying. The report did not say where the workers were originally from, though it said some were confused about their backgrounds.
Officials from the southwestern province of Sichuan said authorities flew to the western region of Xinjiang to rescue the workers. "We are going to rescue them and help them with their rights," said the official, who would give only his surname Tang.
