‘Not a single day of rest’: victims reveal details of modern slavery case in China
- Fifty-two men were rescued in April after one escaped and went to police
- They were guarded around the clock, kept in rooms with more than a dozen others, and beaten if they worked too slowly, complained or tried to escape
After being locked up and forced to work in harsh conditions in northeast China for up to six years, 52 men were freed in April last year when one of them finally escaped and reported the case to police.
The 13 men who ran the four syndicates that lured them into slavery were sentenced to jail terms of one to six years by a Harbin court in December.
Shocking details have now emerged in the slavery case, with two of the victims telling their stories to Chinese news site Thepaper.cn.
The men are from provinces across China but they all had one thing in common – they were struggling to find work because of physical disabilities, mental illness, a lack of education or homelessness.
The syndicates preyed on them as they looked for jobs in train stations or at labour markets, where rural migrant workers usually go to find employment in the city, the news outlet reported on Saturday.
They were taken to the northeast of the country, where they were locked up when they were not working and guarded by syndicate members around the clock. Their ID cards, mobile phones and money were taken away and the victims said if they tried to escape, they would be beaten with shovels and other tools.