An internet protest over human trafficking shakes the grip of the Chinese censors

Every now and then the Chinese government briefly loses control of the message. Not the glossy message projected to outsiders, but the essential internal message: the Party is in control and all that Chinese citizens are required to do is work hard and keep quiet.

It started with 400 fathers who posted a heart-breaking plea on an internet forum in Henan, one of the country's least developed provinces: "Our children, who are very young and unsophisticated, were hoodwinked or forcibly dragged into cars by human traffickers at Zhengzhou railway station, bus stations, underneath pedestrian overpasses or on the roads. They were sold for 500 yuan [£33] a piece to the owners of illegal brick kilns in Shanxi to work as slave labourers."

The fathers described how the authorities in their home state of Henan, and the neighbouring region of Shanxi where the children were being held, refused to act. "The Henan police . . . explained that since our children were only coercively detained and illegally forced to work, and since no children died, the case was not strong enough to be registered. Who can rescue our children? Who can help us?"

Fu Zhenzhong, a local journalist, took up the case, going undercover and secretly filming the brick kilns of Shanxi, where children as young as eight were working 16-hour days. His footage shows small children dragging heavy wheelbarrows and emaciated men shovelling dirt.

Yang Aizhi happened to watch the news that night. When Fu's report was aired, she collapsed. She had seen her 16-year-old son who had disappeared in March. The journalist took Yang to the kiln where her son was being held, and filmed the encounter. As she sobbed, "I didn't know if he was alive or dead," the kiln owner admitted that he had paid traffickers for the boy.

Viewers in Henan were gripped. This was not normal TV fare in China, where the news is dominated by Party leaders shaking hands with foreign dignitaries and endless production statistics. Such was the outrage, the national TV news was compelled to show the reports. On internet chatrooms people expressed their anger, calling for everyone to wear blue ribbons in support of the slave children, to condemn human traffickers, government officials, factory owners and contractors who provide labourers.

President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao ordered an investigation and police were deployed across Henan and Shanxi. At the time of writing, 550 slaves have been released and 168 of those involved in the trade arrested. Among those under investigation is Wang Dongji, a Communist Party branch secretary, whose son owned a kiln where 31 people were enslaved and a mentally handicapped man died, allegedly after mistreatment.

Stories emerged of parents trying to rescue children and being prevented by the police, who argued that the kiln owners had paid for the boys. One supervisor accidentally killed a child with a shovel and buried the body at night.

Zhenzhong, who broke the story, told the China Youth Daily: "In our reporting, the big-gest obstacle has been lack of co-operation from some authorities in Shanxi. Some are still coming up with any number of ways to keep parents from rescuing their children."

Normally cautious newspapers have carried serious criticism of local government officials, who allowed the trade in slaves to flourish. "Who'll assume responsibility for this crime that has lasted for over a decade?" asked the Southern Metropolis Daily. "In many countries, a scandal like this would be enough to spark a major political crisis and crisis of confidence."

Trying to regain control of the message, the government now touts the slave issue as a triumph for law and order. The innocent have been released, the guilty arrested. But the words of an arrested kiln foreman reveal how commonplace such abuses are: "I felt it was a fairly small thing, hitting and swearing at the workers and not giving them wages," said Heng Tinghan, who worked for the son of Party boss Dongji.

Henan TV and local newspapers have been told that from now on they can carry only state-run agency reports on the issue.

The Communist Party's Central Office of External Communication sent a message to news websites: "Regarding the Shanxi 'illegal brick kilns' event, all websites should reinforce positive propaganda, put more emphasis on the forceful measures that the central and local governments have already taken."

But I wonder if this one will lie down so easily. Maybe Chinese journalists will be emboldened to investigate other, similar, abuses? There are plenty out there. And hundreds of parents are still looking for their children.

Lindsey Hilsum is China correspondent for Channel 4 News

Post your comment

Please note: you will need to login or register before you can comment on the website