CHINA: Children kidnapped and forced to work as slaves
Updated
In China, a thousand children, some as young as eight, have been kidnapped and sold to work as slaves. According to the official People's Daily newspaper, the children were kidnapped near bus and train stations in the central province of Henan. It says hundreds of their parents have been risking their lives in the search for their children - who are reported to be working in a brick factory in a nearby province.
Presenter: Rob Sharp
Speakers: Dr Nicolas Becuelin from Human Rights Watch in China
BECUELIN: Child kidnapping and child labour is a severe problem in China and that the Chinese Government is not doing enough in terms of transparency, because it thinks that it's an embarrassment for the image of the country and therefore tries to keep under lid any report in domestic media about these kind of issues. You don't have statistics for instance about how many children are kidnapped every year or you don't have statistics about child labour.
SHARP: This issue now is making the media in China, is that an indication of how serious the problem has become?
BECUELIN: Well, I think it's an indication that the Chinese Government is trying to do everything it can to project a positive image before the Olympics and certainly the issue of sweat shops and child labour have been fairly prominent in respect to China for years. And now it's not very much a surprise that just before the Olympics we had a report about child labour and the practice is still pretty much current.
The key issue when we talk about child labour is schooling and over the past ten years, China's education system has become effectively paying. You have to pay to get your children to school. And so for rural families, who come from poor provinces from Central China, very often this is too much, and they are not able to afford schooling for their children and that's why children start to work.
SHARP: There are two issues in relation to this case, though. At least 1,000 children we're talking about, some as young as 8 it's been reported by the People's Daily in China being kidnapped. So we're talking about abduction and also children as young as 8 working in a brick factory?
BECUELIN: Well, there are a number of industries that use child labour in China, in particular, anything that needs very nibble fingers and so for instance paper cuts and also fireworks and all sort work that is very repetitive and needs careful attention. And actually you don't pay, you don't have to pay children very much and therefore they're still an economic incentive for unscrupulous employers to do that.
The key problem here is that it's very hard to find redress. Even if you know of a company that does this, you can try to turn to the courts, but the courts will actually not lodge the case and aren't likely to send an investigation. This is a problem that it's fairly endemic. If China has good labour laws, but they are absolutely not enforced.
As to kidnapping, this I think reflects the fact that crime is becoming more and more of a serious issue in China, as in many rapidly developing economies.
SHARP: How often do we hear about children being abducted and being forced to work as slaves now in China?
BECUELIN: Well, I would say that this is fairly extreme and this is definitely a case that is particularly troublesome. But the special repertoire on education from the United Nations went to China a couple of years ago, in a report stressed that child labour was a problem.
SHARP: So you think Nicolas, there's no coincidence in the timing that this is been linked in the lead up to the Olympics?
BECUELIN: Well, I think China wants to be shown as being very serious about this allegation of child labour and child trafficking. And certainly there is, it's impossible to have a news like this published in official media if the government doesn't want it there. There is strict censorship on the press. There is no independent media in China. So certainly it does send a signal. And this is actually a signal that we welcome. The more we talk about the issue, and the more likely that the issue will be addressed. Throwing a blanket over the problem as China has been doing for many, many years is of course not going to solve anything.
