Venkatesan Vembu

Hong Kong: Officials in southern China are investigating a shocking case of child slavery in which hundreds of children, aged between 9 and 15, were sold by their parents to illegal job agents who in turn sold them to factories.

The case,which shows up the dark underbelly of China’s famed manufacturing prowess, came to light following an expose by the Nanfang Daily newspaper, which has a wellearned reputation for investigative journalism and fairly independent editorial opinions.

According to these reports, teams of job agents (called gongtou) in poverty-stricken Liangshan county in Sichuan province in southwestern China paid the children’s parents as little as 200 yuan (about Rs 1,200) as wages in advance. They then sent the children to work in factories in far-off Shenzhen, Dongguan and Huizhou, all in the booming Guangdong province in southern China.

Some of the young girls who were sold into slavery were also allegedly sexually harassed by the job agents. Typically, the slave children were required to work 300 hours a month and earned about 3 yuan (Rs 15) an hour, without any other benefits, but all their earnings went to the gongtou,who in turn paid the parents a small amount.

Following the expose, the Dongguan municipal government sent officials to rescue child labourers, and have begun an investigation. Dongguan government spokesman Wang Yongquan said the police had rescued more than 100 youngsters from rented houses and arrested several people.

With inflation – and workers’ wages - on the rise China, factories that mass-produce goods intended for store shelves across the world are under pressure to cut costs.

Employing child labourers works out to be a win-win proposition for the factories as well as parents. In fact, young girls who were rescued by the police said they would not leave the factories because they had been sold by their parents and were required to earn money.

Source : DNA