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'Slave labour' factory boss arrested in China
BEIJING: Chinese police have arrested a factory boss who allegedly abused more than 10 workers, including mentally ill ones, state media reported yesterday.
The mentally ill workers were sold to Li Xinglin by a man who purportedly ran a beggars' shelter.
It has also been found that the operator of the unlicensed shelter in south-western Sichuan province, Zeng Lingquan, had sold at least 70 mentally ill workers into slavery in recent years, the local authorities told state press yesterday. He was arrested on Monday night on charges of selling workers into slavery.
Investigators made the discovery after China's latest slave labour scandal erupted this week when the authorities shut down the factory in the north-western Xinjiang region, where more than 10 workers sold by the shelter had been enslaved for years.
Police on Tuesday arrested Li, owner of the Jiaersi Green Construction Material Chemical Factory, who was attempting to return the enslaved workers to the Sichuan shelter, the report said.
His son, Li Chenglong, was also nabbed in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, while the group of mentally ill workers he had taken with him were placed in government custody.
The elder Li claimed he had contracted the workers from the shelter, paying a lump sum of 9,000 yuan (S$1,760) for the delivery of five of them, and then an additional 300 yuan per worker per month.
The workers toiled for long hours in polluted and unsanitary conditions, suffered regular beatings and were given the same food as the dogs belonging to the factory boss, the Beijing News said on Tuesday.
None of those enslaved was paid, the reports said, and some of them had been working for up to four years. They were aged between 20 and 50, but the nature of their mental illnesses or disabilities was not specified.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIJING: Chinese police have arrested a factory boss who allegedly abused more than 10 workers, including mentally ill ones, state media reported yesterday.
The mentally ill workers were sold to Li Xinglin by a man who purportedly ran a beggars' shelter.
It has also been found that the operator of the unlicensed shelter in south-western Sichuan province, Zeng Lingquan, had sold at least 70 mentally ill workers into slavery in recent years, the local authorities told state press yesterday. He was arrested on Monday night on charges of selling workers into slavery.
Investigators made the discovery after China's latest slave labour scandal erupted this week when the authorities shut down the factory in the north-western Xinjiang region, where more than 10 workers sold by the shelter had been enslaved for years.
Police on Tuesday arrested Li, owner of the Jiaersi Green Construction Material Chemical Factory, who was attempting to return the enslaved workers to the Sichuan shelter, the report said.
His son, Li Chenglong, was also nabbed in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, while the group of mentally ill workers he had taken with him were placed in government custody.
The elder Li claimed he had contracted the workers from the shelter, paying a lump sum of 9,000 yuan (S$1,760) for the delivery of five of them, and then an additional 300 yuan per worker per month.
The workers toiled for long hours in polluted and unsanitary conditions, suffered regular beatings and were given the same food as the dogs belonging to the factory boss, the Beijing News said on Tuesday.
None of those enslaved was paid, the reports said, and some of them had been working for up to four years. They were aged between 20 and 50, but the nature of their mental illnesses or disabilities was not specified.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, ASSOCIATED PRESS
