CHINA:CHILDREN LINE up in front of stalls carrying their washbasins, quilts and other belongings, while three middle-aged men pat their faces or pinch their arms as they check out their physical condition, just like in a slave market.
"These kids are robust and can do the toughest work," said one foreman, as he pulled a scrawny girl to stand beside him, his comments captured by an undercover reporter for the Southern Metropolis Daily. The youngest children found in the child labour market were only seven and nine years old and there were allegations that some of the girls had been raped.
The story was subsequently carried on the Xinhua news agency and has caused outrage in China. The children, many of them from the poorer region of Sichuan in China's southwest, are being sold "like cabbages in Dongguan", said one report, to work as labourers in the prosperous southern and eastern factory regions.
"The bustling child labour market [in Sichuan province] was set up by the local chief foreman and his gang of 18 minor foremen, who each manage 50 to 100 child labourers . . . the children generally fall between the ages of 13 and 15, but many look under 10," the newspaper reported. Slave dealers surrounded the reporter, eager to show off their wares, and encouraging him to test the various youngsters out and see how much physical work they were capable of. Contracts signed with the children contain no provisions for social security, leave, health insurance and other welfare provisions.
Last year a slave ring employing hundreds of poor farmers and mentally disabled people at brick kilns in Shanxi and Henan provinces was broken by police, prompting widespread public anger and leading to a national crackdown on child labour and the use of slaves.
But this kind of abuse of child labour is still clearly going on despite the crackdown. According to a contract obtained by an undercover report, a child labourer is paid 3.5 yuan (30 cent) an hour and must work at least 300 hours a month. One child labourer, Hai Qubu, told of his daily regime. The day usually lasted 13 to 14 hours in his factory, starting with a wake-up call at 6am, followed by 20 minutes for breakfast, then roll-call at 7am before the children are shipped to the workshop, where they work until 10.30pm or later. They get half an hour for lunch and for dinner. A local resident surnamed Shao said the peak season for finding the best candidates was in November and December.
The newspaper said 76 children from the same county, Liangshan, had been missing since February, 42 of whom had already left the region to work.
According to Xinhua, the local government had sent officials to rescue the children, but some were unwilling to leave, having been sold into slavery by their parents or volunteering to work themselves.