Human Trafficking Around the World (38 page)

While child and forced labor are technically illegal, it is difficult to ascertain whether the lack of enforcement is a result of remoteness, the hidden nature of the crime, corruption, or some combination of the three. One mother, Zhang Xiaoying, who visited over 100 brick factories in the Shanxi Province in search of her missing 15-year-old son, said that at one factory police demanded bribes. Once inside the factory Xiaoying was horrified by the inhumane conditions there: “We finally got into that place, and I saw people hauling carts of bricks with great difficulty. Some of them were very small, and the ropes they pulled left tracks of blood on their shoulders and backs. Others were making bricks, standing by the machines. They had to move the bricks from the belt very quickly because they were hot and heavy and they could easily get burned or hurt by the machines” (French, 2007).

Liu Cheng, a professor of labor law at Shanghai Normal University, stated that these forced-labor scenarios may be a result of a government-business alliance. “Forced labor and child labor in China are illegal, but some local governments don’t care too much,” Cheng told the
New York Times
(French, 2007).

One source of concern is the number of government-sanctioned work-study programs that are simply a veiled means to supply elementary school children to factories and farms for forced labor. The children face dangerous conditions and excessive hours with mandatory overtime. In 2008 the Xinjiang provincial government forced thousands of its students into child labor through the work-study program in order to meet the annual harvest quota (U.S. Department of State, 2009). Government-sponsored labor programs like the Transfer Surplus Workforce Outwards program have also forced children to work without even the pretense of study; many of the child laborers are members of the Uighur (Turkic) ethnic group. For example, a government transfer program exploited more than 300 Uighur children under the age of 18 by forcing them to work thousands of miles from home at a shoe factory in China’s southeastern Guangdong Province. Longfa Shoe Factory, where the children were working, is owned by Taiwan-based Dean Shoes Co. Ltd., which supplies footwear to the U.S. company Nike, Inc. Spokespersons for both Nike and Longfa Shoe Factory denied the allegation that underage workers were being used and said hiring underage workers would violate company policies. Allegedly, officials pressured some families to participate in the program and forced the children to use faux or swapped identification cards that made it appear as though they were older. For instance, one 16-year-old girl was instructed by government officials to swap identity cards with her older sister. The father of another teen who was also forced to swap identification with her older sister was told that if he resisted having his 16-year-old daughter work for the program, the government would cancel his government poverty aid. “My older daughter in Karamay City filled the form out for my younger daughter,” the father said. “Then my younger daughter set off [for Guangdong] on April 20, 2008. It [will be] one year this April” (Juma, 2009).

Not only have government-sanctioned and -sponsored programs resulted in forced labor; so too has the national government’s compulsory drug detention program. As a result of China’s 2008 anti-drug law, at any given moment approximately half a million people are in rehabilitation centers. In 2011 alone 216,000 former drug users were detained in 165 centers (U.S. Department of State, 2012). Government officials and security forces are allowed to incarcerate suspected drug users for up to seven years without a trial or any other judicial oversight (Human Rights Watch, 2010). No evidence is required to legitimize arrest. According to one former detainee interviewed by Human Rights Watch, a person does not need to be a drug user to be harassed and arrested by police under the anti-drug law. “Even if you’re not using you will be detained if the police know you have used drugs in the past or you look like someone who has” (Human Rights Watch, 2010: p. 24). A Human Rights Watch report stated that China’s compulsory detoxification centers not only deny drug users treatment but also use them as forced labor and administer physical abuse (Human Rights Watch, 2010).

Police corruption seems to play a part in determining which civilians are arrested and placed in the detoxification centers. Those who have the money to pay off the police may be able to prevent arrest; those without the means cannot. Chou, a former detainee, said that he was leaving work when several police in plain clothes ambushed him.

They started beating me and put handcuffs on me. No one on the street tried to help because they just assumed I was a criminal. The police said if I didn’t give them 3,000 yuan [$440] they would put me in detox. They brought me to my house and told me if I didn’t get the money they would keep beating me. They waited while I was inside and waited while my family found 3,000 RMB from relatives. I was so scared. (Human Rights Watch, 2010: p. 24)

Article 43 of the anti-drug law states that the addict will be given physiological or psychological treatment or physical rehabilitation training: “The compulsory isolation center for drug rehabilitation shall, in light of the kind of narcotic drugs that a drug addict ingests or injects and the degree of his addiction, etc., give him physiological or psychological treatment or physical rehabilitation training, as the case may be” (Human Rights Watch, 2010: p. 16). If appropriately interpreted, it seems that labor without pay may be by definition part of a patient’s rehabilitation. This ambiguity seems to create a loophole for rehabilitation centers to force patients to work against their will and to profit financially from their labor. Former detainees of drug rehabilitation centers in Yunnan Province said that they were not only refused basic medical care but also faced beatings and 18-hour workdays without pay making trinkets and shoes. “The point of being put in a drug detention center is not to quit drugs, it is to work,” Jian, a former detainee, told Human Rights Watch. “There is no medicine to take when you first get in and there is no methadone or anything else. They don’t put us there to get healthy, they put us there to work. … We get up at five in the morning to make shoes. We work all day and into the night. That’s all it is” (Human Rights Watch, 2010: p. 28).

Other detainees are selected to use physical force against inmates who are considered inefficient. The incentives of becoming an enforcer are immunity from work and access to higher-quality food. Deng, a former detainee, said that the last time he was in drug detention he didn’t finish his work on time and was badly beaten: “They beat me all over my back and butt and wouldn’t let me sleep. They say it’s the police who guard detox, but really they use other detainees because the police don’t want to be responsible if someone dies. The people who are chosen have much better situations than normal detainees. They don’t have to work, they get food that is more than just rice and spoiled vegetables” (Human Rights Watch, 2010: p. 30).

How many deaths occur in rehabilitation centers is unknown. Former detainees did state in the report that when an unnatural death occurs, family members of the deceased are paid not to look into the matter. Former detainees say those families that push officials to investigate what happened to their loved ones face threats (Human Rights Watch, 2010).

Like those in compulsory detoxification centers, criminal suspects in detention centers face forced labor, abuse, and torture and are denied medications. Unnatural deaths also occur. As stated in the Human Rights Watch report, official Chinese government statistics indicate that in the first four months of 2009 15 detainees died of unnatural deaths in official detention centers. Since then the government has equipped criminal detention centers with closed-circuit television security monitors. It has not yet done so in any of the compulsory detoxification centers (Chou, 2006; Human Rights Watch, 2010).

CHINA AS A DESTINATION AND AS A TRANSIT NATION

Though certainly less prevalent than trafficking within China, trafficking of persons from bordering nations into China is on the rise. Predominantly from Vietnam and Myanmar (Burma), females and boys are victims of trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation through adoption and matchmaking services. Also believed to be on the rise is the number of persons trafficked from Laos to China and from China to Malaysia and Thailand for commercial sexual exploitation (Guihua, 2009). Of similar ancestry, those on the border of Laos and China often speak the same language and have like customs. However, the starker economic situation on the Laos side has created a drive for cross-border migration to China and a ripe opportunity for human trafficking. “We have to brace ourselves for more cases,” said Hang Lintao, deputy director at the Criminal Investigation Section at the Yunnan Public Security Bureau (Guihua, 2009).

Zhao Xianming, a narcotics police officer in Mengla County, says cross-border matchmaking services burgeoned at the same time as Chinese agricultural laborers went to Laos to replace poppy production with the growth of cash crops such as rubber, fruit, and rice (China Daily, 2003; Guihua, 2009). “Most victims are teenage girls from mountainous areas in northern Laos, who were lured by job or marriage opportunities at the other side of the border,” Xianming told the Xinhua News Agency. One such case involved two girls (ages 14 and 15) from Laos promised legitimate employment at a restaurant in a neighboring county in Laos. Instead their trafficker, a native of Laos who is married to a Chinese citizen, attempted to traffic the girls into China. He was stopped at the border. “Thanks to the timely communication with the Lao side,” said Xianming, “the two girls were rescued at the border crossing and handed over to the Lao police the same day”(Guihua, 2009).

Women who flee to China from North Korea are vulnerable to forced labor and sexual servitude. Some are sold into forced marriages with Chinese nationals; others are forced to work in the sex industry (U.S. Department of State, 2009). One such case is that of Kim Chun-ae, who was smuggled to China in pursuit of her eldest daughter who had gone missing; Chun-ae assumed her daughter had fled to China. After Chun-ae and another daughter entered China, they were directed to a safe house. Accepting a job as a cook, Chun-ae soon realized that the camp was actually just a holding space before women were sold to local farmers as brides. When Chun-ae’s 16-year-old daughter disappeared from the camp, Chun-ae met a broker who promised to find her daughter in exchange for marriage. The broker was abusive and raped her habitually. “I was locked into a house and raped every night,” Chun-ae told The
Telegraph
. “My teenage daughter was sold three times by traffickers. She was recycled” (Spencer, 2005).

Some experts point to the lopsided gender ratio as a contributing factor in the demand for the trafficking of women into China. According to a 2011 estimate, there are 45,543,936 more men than women under the age of 64 (CIA, 2011). China’s cultural pressures to produce male offspring and the one-child policy have resulted in the frequent abortion of female fetuses, particularly in rural areas. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences says that these “extremely common” sex-specific abortions are a critical factor in the gender imbalance (BBC News, 2010). According to James Farrer, “Infanticide of girls and the gender imbalance pre-existed this policy. What the policy has done is put pressure on families to make certain choices that they might not have made on their own. This has resulted in sex-selective abortions.”
²

Obtaining exact numbers is difficult because not all parents register their female infants, but in terms of recorded statistics it seems that only 100 girls are born for every 118 boys. In some provinces the gender gap increases to 130 boys for every 100 girls born (BBC News, 2010; Haixing, 2012). Yu Xuejun, head of the Policy and Legislation Department of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, says this is in part due to a lack of effective social security in rural areas. With only one-tenth of farmers covered by social security, many turn to their sons for support as they age. Additionally, there is simply a favoring of males as laborers. “In the countryside boys are preferred because they are better labor[ers] than girls and labor is always the top priority” (China Daily, 2004).

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences believes that by 2020 more than 24 million Chinese men of marrying age may find themselves without spouses (BBC News, 2010). The gender imbalance has created a situation in which men at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder must scramble for a wife. According to Farrer, Chinese law outlawed marriage as a financial exchange in 1950, and marriage patterns changed as a result. “For example, the young couple is more important than the parents in the relationship. At the same time, gifts are still part of the wooing process. Those without financial means are unable to offer such gifts leaving them at a distinct disadvantage for finding a wife.”
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Experts had the foresight to realize the adverse impact the lopsided gender ratio would have on not only marriage but also on birth and marriage rights and the exploitation of women. “The shortage of women will have enormous implications on China’s social, economic and development future,” said Khalid Malik, then-UN resident coordinator in China, in 2004. “In the next decade, we could have as many as 60 million missing women. People are exercising their preferences, but the consequences for society are huge. The skewed ratio of men to women will have an impact on the sex industry and human trafficking as well” (China Daily, 2004). Years after Malik’s statements it seems that he was correct. The
Global Times
reported that the increasing imbalance has resulted in abductions, human trafficking, forced prostitution, and illegal marriages in areas with an excess number of men (The Telegraph, 2010). Vice-Premier Li Keqiang announced in January 2010 that China would continue to pursue a low birthrate while actively coping with problems such as the sex-ratio imbalance and the aging of the population (Xinhua News Agency, 2010a).