Hundreds of freed child labourers illegally sold by overseers from Sichuan to factories in Dongguan , Guangdong province, have refused to leave the plants despite the brutal conditions, according to mainland media.
'I don't want to go home. My parents have already sold me to the overseers,' a tearful teenage girl named Luo Siqi was quoted as telling a police officer in a report in the Southern Metropolis News yesterday.
About 40 children resold to another electronics manufacturer in Dongguan to evade a police crackdown said they were looking forward to working in new 'profitable jobs' that paid 3 yuan (HK$3.34) an hour with mandatory overtime.
The report said thousands of children from remote Liangshan county in Sichuan province had been sold to Guangdong factories during the past five years. The children were abused and forced to work under slave-like conditions for 12 hours a day, almost every day. Most children were from ethnic minorities and aged between nine and 15.
A dealer in child labourers was quoted as saying that children who were abducted or bought in Sichuan were sold in cities in Guangdong, including Dongguan, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Huizhou and Jiangmen .
'In Dongguan, there's a great demand for our child labourers ... who never complain about the excessive workload. They can return children to us anytime when they get sick or suffer industrial injuries. We deal with it,' the dealer said.
An unnamed child worker said overseers and their hired thugs used knives to threaten the children not to try to escape.