China Investigates Forced Child Labor

[Omaha Steve]

Source: NY Times

By DAVID BARBOZA

SHANGHAI — China said Wednesday that it was investigating whether hundreds or perhaps thousands of children from poor areas in the southwest part of the country had been sold to work as slave laborers in booming coastal factory cities.

Authorities in southern Guangdong Province, near Hong Kong, said they had already rescued more than 100 children from factories in Dongguan, a huge manufacturing city known for producing and exporting toys, textiles and electronics.

The children, mostly 13 to 15 years old, were often tricked or kidnapped by employment agencies working in an impoverished part of western Sichuan Province, and then sent to factory towns in Guangdong, where they were often forced to work as much as 300 hours a month for little money, according to government officials and accounts from the state-owned media.


China Daily, via Reuters

A girl cried after being rescued on Monday from a factory where she had been forced to work in Dongguan, China.


The authorities in southern China said Wednesday that they had arrested several people involved in the case and that they were trying to determine the identities of the children.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/world/asia/01china.html?ref=worldbusiness

[saigon68]

1. I'm sure those Party Members who drive Ferraris & Lambos

are really tore up over this shit

[rpannier]

8. They're just devastated

Now they have to go find new laborers

[Lennon]

2. Chinese slave children 'sold like cabbages'

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x356341

[OhioChick]

3. Don't forget to spend those stimulus checks

at Walmart. :sarcasm:

[rpannier]

7. Walmart... Low low prices everyday

Low working conditions
Low morals
Low concern for ordinary people

High profits.
I was really glad they left Korea. Unfortunately, E-Mart bought them out. And they are a worse employer than Wal-mart.
Corporations are, for the most part, the same around the world.

[ladywnch]

10. it's not like they're white or American

I doubt whether many people who shop at Walmart will care.....more like, 'better them than me or mine' They same way they don't care that Iraqi civilians are dying in droves......they're brown and not Christian....they're not human.

[rpannier]

11. The chilling part of this for me came about two months ago

QConline did a story on Deere retirees possibly losing their retirement benefits (while the company posted record profits).
There were a bunch of posters who put up sh*t like:

Good, now they know how I feel.

Why should they get something I'm not getting.

I work two jobs and they have it better than me.


It's becoming less about being American and more about people just not giving a f*ck about anyone, but themselves.

[ladywnch]

12. my father saw this coming 30 years ago. He told me the attitude

of most people is "yeah for me and the hell with you". Mind you he didn't believe or subscribe to this nor was it something he tried to instill in his kids, but he did want us to be aware that it did exist.

The more you instill fear in people the more you trigger the pure survival instinct in them and this administration has done more to instill fear in the nation than Pearl Harbor and WWII.

This will take decades to undo.

[ohio2007]

4. China investigation results finds " Children are slacking off " - kids told to "get the lead out"

nt

[rpannier]

5. That's probably going to be what happens at the end

[rpannier]

6. Several people???

Yeah. Some middle level bureaucrat.

The higher level party officials will be totally exhonerated of any wrong-doing.

It's the way of the Chinese government and the corporatist state model

on edit: I wonder how much official Olympic merchandise they've made? With the Olympics almost here, their services are probably no longer needed.

[crimsonblue]

9. Chinese government cracks down on child slave labor-- saying the numbers

"just aren't high enough. With a little prodding, we are hoping we can make our fourth quarter oppression projections." Fuck China. Too little, way too late assholes.