Afraid of violating the law, state-owned enterprises and large companies stay away from employing child laborers, so most flock to smaller private, often unlicensed, enterprises. According to the labor report from Zhejiang, 98 percent of the child laborers there were concentrated in township private economy entities, especially family workshops.

The employers of child workers take a risk hiring them to reduce production costs and maximize their profits. Thus it's common to see poor treatment, underpayment, delayed or docked wages, prolonged working hours and poor working environments.

According to Tong, child workers usually work for 10-16 hours every day and have been made to work for a consecutive 30 hours in case to meet emergency orders. As a result, work injuries are common among them.

Li Qiaozhen from Shandong Province was 14 when she came to Beijing in 2002. She was doing as much as four employees' work in a bean food processing factory on a March day in 2005 when she was so tired that she got her right arm stuck in the machine which ripped it off.

In summer and winter holidays, it is common for poor children to do part-time work to make a little money for their tuitions. On June 24, 2006, 17 students went to work in a food factory in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, in the hope of lightening the financial burden for their families. The youngest of them was 12 and the oldest 17.

They woke up at 5 a.m. to just a steamed bun for breakfast. They had 10 minutes for lunch and had to work until 9 p.m., eating poorly cooked noodles for supper. They had been laboring for 20 days before they were found and sent home.

Social reasons

Bans on employing child labor are included in two laws, the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Minors and the Labor Law. The Criminal Law was amended to add the crime of using child labor to do heavy and dangerous work. In Tong's opinion, China has sound legislation forbidding child labor, so why has the law been unable to prevent cases like the Shanxi brick kiln scandal?

In summarizing the settlement of the kiln scandal, Shanxi Governor Yu said lack of supervision of China's floating labor force and use of labor were partly to blame.

Another lesson for the government was that some of the officials failed to carry out their duties and showed indifference toward health and safety. In the beginning the law enforcement departments in Shanxi dodged their responsibilities by telling the many parents searching for their children from Henan that they should speak to their local police departments.

In fact, the local procurator in Hongtong County had already planned to inspect the kiln and six local officials were eventually detained on charges of neglecting their duties.

The government in the meantime will show no mercy to the people who have covered up for the kiln criminals, vowed Wang Guozheng, the local Party head.

Despite the harsh words, what usually happens is that the labor security watchdog turns a blind eye to the child labor problem, except for special raids or campaigns once in a while to crack down on employers. They rarely use severe measures to root out the problem. Such nonfeasance to some degree has lent an opportunity to the illegal child labor employers.

Widespread examinations and inspections are the usual means to fight against child labor, combined with comprehensive public participation, which has been lacking in China.

According to lawyer and labor relations researcher Ma Jianjun, the issue of child labor has its roots in the unbalanced development between rural and urban areas and among different regions. In the long run if the government fails to narrow the gap child laborers will continue to be a problem.

May 9 Henan TV's Metro Channel reporter Fu Zhenzhong was tipped off and traveled to Shanxi to investigate the scandal at the scene

May 19 The TV station ran the news, depicting the pain of the children's parents looking for their missing children and the hellish living conditions of the laborers in the illegal kilns. Many parents turned to the TV station for help

June 5 An online post on Henan's portal about finding the lost children caused a surge of interest from netizens

June 7 The local newspaper Shanxi Evening News ran an exclusive story exposing the miserable life of kiln laborers. Afterward the media began to focus on the forced labor case

June 11 The illegal brick kiln scandal hit the headlines and appeared on the front page of various web portals

June 13 The forced labor scandal attracted attention from the country's top leaders and Zhang Mingqi, a senior official of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions went to the field to oversee the case

June 15 The Shanxi Provincial Government launched a comprehensive raid to rescue the enslaved laborers and arrest the illegal kiln bosses. The Ministry of Public Security gave an order to arrest Heng Tinghan, foreman of the brick kiln in Caosheng Village

June 16 Heng Tinghan was captured in Hubei

June 19 Two inspectors from the Supreme People's Procuratorate traveled to Hongtong County to investigate possible dereliction of duty by local officials behind the scandal

June 20 Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao chaired a meeting to hear the primary investigation report and Shanxi Governor Yu Youjun made a self-critical speech at the meeting

June 22 A news conference was held to brief journalists on progress in the case, at which Vice Minister of Labor and Social Security Sun Baoshu said a total of 359 people, including 12 children, had been rescued from the illegal brick kilns. Of them, 174, including three children, were lured to the kilns and 185 were forced laborers. Police also found that 65 of the forced workers rescued were mentally retarded.

June 23 Wang Dongji, who was Party head of Caosheng Village where the kiln was located, was expelled from the Party and removed from the post

June 26 Ke Changfu, who was said to have been rude to workers and often beat them, was arrested at a remote construction site in the mountains near Dingjiaying Town in Shiyan City, Hubei Province

The Government Reaction

The State Council: The case needs to be fully investigated and dealt with. The rights of the minors should be protected and social justice should be done by rescuing the victims and punishing the lawbreakers

Ministry of Labor and Social Security: The scandal has revealed the poor governance in illegal labor use and production. Some cadres and law enforcement officers even have been involved in the unlawful kiln brick production for self-interest

All-China Federation of Trade Unions: The federation is shocked and outraged to hear the labor abuse scandal in Caosheng Village in Hongtong County of Shanxi Province. We should never allow such a tragedy to happen in our socialist country

Ministry of Public Security: More efforts will be made to crack down on illegal labor agencies and foremen to curb the use of forced labor

Shanxi Province: The incident has highlighted loopholes in the management of labor use in rural areas and among the floating population. We will never show tolerance to the Party cadres and civil servants who are guilty of dereliction of duty on this issue

Public Security Bureau of Shanxi Province: The police have been cracking down on illegal labor use in brick kilns since the 1990s. It's difficult to clean this up thus such scandals have reoccurred