China promises action on slave labour claims

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HONGTONG, China, June 16 (Reuters): China has promised a sweeping crackdown on a slave labor scandal in a poor part of the country where poverty and unbridled growth have made work abuses commonplace.
Following calls for action by top leaders, the Ministry of labor and
Social Security pledged to send a team to central China, where state media have said up to 1,000 minors may have been forced to work in slave-like conditions in brick kilns.
The local authorities in Shanxi, one of two provinces involved, said they would punish government officials for dereliction of duty unless all of the abused workers were freed within 10 days.
But in this hard-scrabble corner of China, where power is often the key to resources and wealth, people also pointed to official complicity in the trapped workers' plights.
"The officials said that we were illegal and so they came for money but they didn't do any more than that," said Zhang Mei, the wife of one kiln owner detained by police.
"They wanted the money," she said from the confines of her home, just meters from the notorious kiln, where rooms once housing workers were strewn with ragged bedding covered in dust and scraps of steamed bread, probably their staple food.