Slavery and Child Labor in China Found

Underaged children have been found in factories that produce Olympic-related products. Some factories are known to hire children in school holidays. Reportedly, these children are each paid 20 yuan (about $2.50) a day. BBC's investigation confirms the report issued by an alliance called PlayFair 2008. According to the report some olympics-related factories had hired children who often had to work from 7:30am to 10:30pm.

The report published by the "PlayFair 2008 campaign group" can be found at the following link:

http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/playfair_2008.pdf



According to the report, labor right violations include:

• adult wages at half the legal minimum


• employment of workers as young as 12 years old


• employees made to work 12-hour shifts seven days a week in unsafe and unhealthy conditions
  

With freedom of association banned in China, the workers lack any effective means to defend their rights.

The following youtube video (provided by youtuber "minh2824") shows what a typical sweatshop in China is like:



In addition to the problem of using children labor, new.com.au has very recently reported a news article originally found in Shanxi Evening Post about 31 people being forced to work as slaves without any wages at a brickworks run by the son of a local Communist Party official.

One labourer was beaten to death for not working hard enough, before police freed the other slaves in the factory.

References:

BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6747449.stm

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21871210-1702,00.html