Ways That Are Dark

Next year Beijing will be hosting both the Olympics and the Paralympic games. Most observers believe that prior to these international events, the government will clear the city’s streets of beggars So far, the Beijing government has refused to discuss what plans they have for their removal. An article written by John Ray for The Guardian reveals that many of the disabled children working as beggars in Beijing were sold into slavery.

In a country still in shock from this summer’s unprecedented public soul-searching over the slave labour used in brick factories, the sale of children, often disabled, to work as beggars is yet another scandal the authorities will have to tackle.

The article tells the story of Gao Zhou Zhou, a disabled girl sold into slavery who begs near Tiananmen Square. We first learn the story of how she came to be a beggar in Beijing:

It was three years ago when a man she calls ‘uncle’ came to her village. There was a cash transaction with her stepfather, who was promised the equivalent of £150 in instalments. In the land of the rampant capitalist, this was just another business deal.

After detailing her daily plight and toil, the reporter takes a trip to Zhou Zhou’s hometown, to visit the stepfather who sold her into slavery. Here is the result:

Zhou Zhou has pinned her hopes on her stepfather. She gives this message to take to him: ‘Please come and get me. My life here is so bitter.’

We track her stepfather down to a village in Henan, an hour’s flight south of Beijing and a world away from China’s economic miracle. This is dirt-poor country.

Gao Jie Liang, standing in his cramped and muddy farmyard, is slightly built and 5ft tall. No way could he stand up to ‘uncle’ – even if he wanted to. He seems to have no regrets, except to believe that he sold Zhou Zhou too cheaply. She was a burden, he says. She wanted to leave, and it is common for the parents of disabled children to offload them in this way.

The complete Guardian article is China’s disabled children are sold into slavery as beggars.

Federal prosecutors have charged 3 people in Las Vegas with enslaving Chinese acrobats in their midteens and twenties.

Federal prosecutors here say the group has a dark side. Last week they filed charges against three adult leaders of the group, accusing them of “involuntary servitude.”

You Zhi Li, 38, identified by performers as their boss, and Yang Shen, 21, and Jun Hu, 43, called “enforcers” by some members of the troupe, were taken into custody late last month after a woman working as an interpreter for the group contacted the authorities.

The complaint asserts that the three leaders deprived members of the group, most in their midteens to late 20s, of adequate food and payment, kept them in crowded bedrooms and refused to let them leave the house. Mr. Li owns a home in a subdivision here that serves as their base in the United States.

In the federal complaint, the breakaway troupe members said their passports were held under lock and key and one juvenile member said “he only received two meals a day, which consisted of rice, noodles and sometimes meat.”

On days off, the complaint said, some members were forced to go to the home of a friend of Mr. Li’s to do cleaning, lawn work and other tasks not related to performing.

More details in The Times article  3 Charged With Enslaving Members of Chinese Acrobatic Troupe Performing in U.S.

On June 21, The New York Times reported on the Chinese media dropping its coverage of child slavery in the brick kilns of Shanxi Province. As often is the case in China, once the culprit is captured, the story disappears from view.

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.

The article also reports:

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.

The complete Times story is Fast-Growing China Says Little of Child Slavery’s Role.