Kidnapped and sent to the mines – the Wei Wenlin affair

Wei Wenlin, home from a Shanxi coal mine.

Today’s China Daily reports some figures concerning the illegal brick kiln rescue effort that are both impressive and chilling:

A total of 1,340 people, 367 of whom were mentally handicapped, have been rescued from forced labor since the brick kiln scandal was exposed in June, a joint investigation group said yesterday.

During a campaign to crack down on illegal kilns, mines and workshops, 277,000 work units employing 12.67 million workers were inspected, Sun Baoshu, vice-minister of Labor and Social Security and head of the investigation group, said….Police found that 67,000, or 24.2 percent of kilns, mines and workshops inspected nationwide were operating without licenses.

Interestingly, The Beijing News reports that in Shanxi Province alone, there were 36,286 unlicensed work units, making up 42% of the total inspectedm, and 65.5% of 4860 brick kilns in the province were unlicensed, with 17 engaged in serious criminal activity (more details at ESWN). There’s no information in any of the reports about how many of the freed workers actually found their way home.

In more troubling news, it appears as if there are some gaping holes in the inspection process. The Changjiang Times reported yesterday on the case of Wei Wenlin, a seventeen-year-old boy from Hanchuan, Hubei, who disappeared earlier this month from Shijiazhuang, Hebei, where he had been working in a garment factory. On 6 August, in a Shijiazhuang newspaper, Wei’s father saw a description of a drowning victim that matched his son very closely. He claimed the body, had it cremated, and then held a funeral on 10 August.

That afternoon Wei Wenlin returned, saying he had been kidnapped and taken to a mine in Shanxi. Here’s an interview with a reporter:

Yesterday afternoon, a reporter went to Wei Wenlin’s house to talk to him

Changjiang Times: Can you tell us what it was you encountered in Shijiazhuang?

Wei Wenlin: (softly, with head bowed) I can’t say. I’m afraid those people will find out, and it’d be very dangerous for me. I’m scared.

CT: You’ve come home now. Everyone will protect you; don’t be afraid. Tell us how you came back from Shijiazhuang?

Wei: After I escaped from the kiln cave, I reported to the Yangquan PSB, and then I was transferred to the Yangquan aid station. They gave me a ticket back to Wuhan. On the evening of the 8th, I found a branch of the Wuhan aid station at the Hankou train station. I spent the night there, and the next day I was put on a train to Hanchuan. They also told me to find help from the city government after I returned to Hanchuan. I looked around Hanchuan but couldn’t find the government, so I went home, walking a bit and resting a bit, until I went to sleep in a wood not far off from home.

CT: Are the scars on your face from being beaten at the kiln? Did they often bully you?

Wei: (no response; he lowers his head further, and his hands twist a newspaper tightly, somewhat at a loss. He tightens his lips. His face wears a pained expression, and he begins to shiver.)

CT: Had you gone out to work before? After things calm down will you go out to work again?

Wei: I worked two years in Hankou. Now I’m afraid…

Later, Wei told of how he was kidnapped from a Shijiazhuang street:

(excerpted)

At 2 in the morning on 1 August, after Wei Wenlin had finished his evening shift at the garment factory in Shijiazhuang where he worked, he went outside by himself, wearing slippers, to buy some toothpaste. When he was leaving the store to come back, an unmarked van suddenly stopped in front of him and two big men gut out. They said they were from the PSB and needed to check his ID card. Then they forcibly pushed him into the van.

The car also held a driver and a man who spoke with a Shanxi accent. After getting him into the car, they blindfolded and gagged him. After a while, Wei felt himself being pushed out of the van and put into another large vehicle.

…

More time passed, and then Wei was awakened by a pan of cold water. When he opened his eyes, his blindfold had been taken off. He saw that he was together with a dozen or more young men, whose hands had been bound around a long horizontal pole. Six or seven middle-aged men held sticks and frequently beat them.

“They beat my back and head with sticks.” After a short silence, two men with Shanxi accents motioned for Wei and a few others to go with them. Although they weren’t blindfolded, they were not permitted to raise their heads or look to either side.

After more than ten minutes, the group reached a cave that had been dug out no long before. Two men gve them shovels and hammers and had them go into the coal pit to work.

As Wei Wenlin remembers, there were four other young men who had been taken with him. The five of them were forced to open up a coal pit 30 meters deep and 70 meters long; their specific task was to dig holes for dynamite. They began work as soon as they arrived, around 2 August, and every day they were given four mantou.

Before going into the pit, the mine gave each person a pair of tall boots and a pair of gloves. There were no safety helmets. Wei, who had never worked underground, did not want to go down. A man kicked him in his back, and Wei said he collapsed to the ground and could not get up for the pain.

According to Wei’s account, they worked about 10 hours a day underground. They ate and relieved themselves in the pit. Once, while in the pit, he said “I don’t want to work,” and a man punched him. This reporter saw a laceration at the corner of his right eye that had not yet healed.

“The second day at work it stormed, and the mine lost power. The five of us planned to escape.” Wei recalls that on that evening, a storm cut the mine’s electricity and the entire area was an inky blackness. “There was nowhere left to go the whole time there, so why not just make a run for it.” The five youths took advantage of the darkness to climb up on the roof, and once they escaped the guards, they ran for it.

After a long time running, the rain finally stopped. They saw a mountain covered in apple trees, and they ate a few apples they picked. However, they did not dare to go into towns or villages where there were a lot of people, nor did they dare to walk on roads where there were people and cars. When night came, they slept in a valley, and started off again when it was light.

Those few days, far from people and without any idea of what day it was or where they were, their only thought was to return home to be with their parents. When they had rested a bit, the sun came up. After crossing countless hills and streams, they saw a village, but because they were afraid that the mining people would be there, they didn’t go near it. They followed a railway close by the village. After more walking, they arrived at Yangquan, Shanxi. The five escapees parted ways at this point.

After he entered the city, Wei Wenlin went to the Yangquan PSB to make a report. Then he was transferred to the Yangquan aid station. “When I went to report to the Yangquan PSB, the local police sent me to the aid station.”

At the aid station, Wei received assistance. “A Mr. Li at the aid station bought me lunch and then arranged for me to bathe. He asked me the specifics of my situation and then had me register. After I had showered and changed clothes, I rested for one night, and then the aid station bought me a train ticket back home. On 7 August, when he gave me the train ticket, Mr. Li called the Wuhan aid station and asked them to send someone to the Hankou train station to get me.”

Yesterday, the reporter called the Yangquan aid station. A worker there told the reporter that he had heard of this matter and the man who had offered help was named Li Xueyou. He was at home because it was the weekend.

At 8am on the 9th, when Wei Wenlin arrived at the Hankou train station, someone from the Wuhan aid station came to get him. He was questioned and registered, and then stayed over a night. The following afternoon, he was given ten yuan and sent from Hankou to Hanchuan. Yesterday, a worker at the Wuhan aid station confirmed this situation.

According to Wei’s account, when he arrived in Hanchuan, he had no money, so he walked twenty kilometers home. Because he was too tired, he laid down in a wood not 100 meters from his house. Four hours later, he finally arrived home.

And in The Beijing News today (and a number of other papers, including the Changjiang Times), Shu Shengxiang commented on what Wei’s case means for the media and the local government:

Wei Wenlin was kidnapped on 1 August. More than ten days before, after sentencing by judicial organs, the illegal kiln affair found preliminary results: nearly one hundred officials were punished for malfeasance or providing protection, overseer Heng Tinghan was sentenced to live in prison, and thug Zhao Yanbing was sentenced to death. But the awkward facts of the things that happened to Wei remind us that there may still be kiln workers being persecuted, and that taking strong measures against illegal employment cannot be done in just one stroke.

If Wei Wenlin’s experience is factual, then it demonstrates that criminals are still presenting legal challenges through their actions: the contest between good and evil in the illegal kiln case is far from over.

There are still people living a tragic existence as forced laborers, there are still wretched slaves who are in dire need of rescue.

Early on there was commentary in the media that “the illegal kiln affair is far from over; news reports need to continue.” People hope that the illegal kiln affair will not follow the swift sentencing and gradually disappear from the public eye; all of the evildoers need to be punished. The searching parents should not be snubbed; we must continue to give them attention and assistance as they search for their children. Even more importantly, there a long-term, effective system needs to be set up to prevent this evil from happening again.

Of course, the media is not the only one that needs to reflect; this episode should remind us that the “blanket search” organized by the local government to “leave no stone unturned, no place overlooked, no person left out” has not achieved complete success. There is still a need for careful inspection. We hope that what happened to Wei Wenlin can prolong the investigation into the illegal kiln affair by the government and society. How many more Wei Wenlins are there who are in illegal pits in need of rescue?

Yesterday, Xinhua reported on the conditions of the national action to clean up illegal employment and strike at criminal acts that has taken place in the wake of the Shanxi illegal kiln affair. Sun Baoshu, vice minister of labor and social security, said, “We must combine inspections with the handling of complaint reports and public opinion to work for a comprehensive thorough effort that leaves nothing untouched.” He also said, “After the focused actions, the paramount task for the next period of time will be find ways to treat the symptoms and the causes, and to establish an effective long-term system of managing rural society.” Wei Wenlin’s experience gives the government a clue. We hope that it will be recognized, investigated, and taken care of, and we await the birth of an effective long-term system that will cure the symptoms and causes and will prevent this type of situation from happening again.