Mentally challenged workers held without pay by Yunnan brick factory
Police in Xuanwei, Southwest China's Yunnan Province rescued six mentally disabled people from allegedly being forced to do heavy unpaid labor at a local brick factory, media reported Sunday.
Bai Wanjia, the only one of the six victims who could name the address of his home, was returned by police on August 30 from the Shengheng Brick Factory in Yangchang township, Xuanwei to his home in Banmao village, Pu'er, some 500 kilometers away, news site thepaper.cn reported Sunday.
All of the six victims are over 20 years old, but Bai was the only one of them who was able to communicate normally with others. Police are still looking into where the other five are from and how they ended up working in the brick factory.
In a video posted on thepaper.cn, Bai said, "I got a plastic basin and a towel … that may be my payment." He added that "the factory only serves meat dishes less than twice every two months."
"[I had to carry] four bricks at a time, otherwise the boss would smash me," said Bai.
Citing a notice released on August 29 by the Public Security Bureau of Qujing - the city that administers Xuanwei - thepaper.cn said the brick factory operators beat and detained the six victims inside the factory to force them to do heavy manual labor without pay.
The bureau's official website, however, could not be accessed as of press time for unknown reasons, and the Xuanwei police declined to be interviewed when reached by the Global Times on Sunday.
Wang Xiaodong, an employee of Xuanwei's local publicity department, told the Global Times on Sunday that the brick factory was founded in October 2005 and is estimated to manufacture 4 million bricks a year. He added that only five people had signed labor contracts with the factory from 2013 to 2015.
The factory has a valid business license and tax registration certificate, but its legal representative, Qiu Guangyou, passed away in March, Wang said, without providing more details about the case.
The factory was shut down on August 3 following the discovery of the mistreated workers, according to thepaper.cn.
An anonymous employee of the government of Yangchang township claimed that this case of illegal confinement of mentally impaired workers by factories is a unique and unprecedented incident.
However, there have been several reports of mentally disabled workers being mistreated by employers in Qujing or its vicinity. Ten such workers were forced to do heavy labor without pay in a brick factory in Qujing for three months, news site people.cn reported in 2013. During that time, the 10 victims were forced to manually carry as many as 700,000 bricks and suffered from illegal restriction of their personal freedom.
