Human Trafficking Around the World (37 page)

The government of Niger has taken some significant anti-trafficking steps. For instance, in 2008 it amended the armed-forces bylaws to prohibit troops from participating in or facilitating of human trafficking. It has also cooperated with the anti-trafficking efforts of other nations, such as Mali and Togo. In 2008 these efforts resulted in the arrest of one trafficker from Togo and three from Mali. In 2009 Nigerien authorities transferred one suspected trafficker to the custody of Interpol Mali (U.S. Department of State, 2009, 2010).

Slavery in Niger is blatantly downplayed. Not only does the government fail to acknowledge the widespread nature of this practice, but the judicial system issues suspended sentences and reduced fines to those who are found guilty of the practice. When a crime that is stipulated to carry a sentence of 10 to 30 years’ imprisonment is reduced to a suspended sentence, the severity of the crime is significantly undermined. Also, Niger’s laws have created numerous weaknesses regarding child labor. The minimum age for work is 14 (16 for hazardous work). The law regarding hazardous labor does not discuss safety, supervision, instruction, or training—all areas that need to be addressed to properly protect child workers from harm. Another issue of vulnerability is that education is compulsory only until age 12, but children cannot legally work until age 14. In the interval many children enter the labor force illegally and thus become vulnerable to unregulated markets. Increasing the compulsory age of education to at least 14 would eliminate this gap. The 2010 adoption of an anti-trafficking law is a significant positive step for Niger as it creates a comprehensive definition of trafficking that allows victims to file civil suits against their traffickers. If implemented properly, it could help to ensure that traffickers face more stringent sentencing and decrease the trend of suspended sentences, though much of this depends on the courts. Thus far, no convictions have occurred since the new law was adopted.

CHAPTER 15

China

Forced labor and child labor in China are illegal, but some local governments don’t care too much.

—LIU CHENG, PROFESSOR OF LABOR LAW AT SHANGHAI NORMAL UNIVERSITY

Almost every known form of human trafficking can be found in China. Foreign persons and Chinese nationals are trafficked to and within China for commercial sexual exploitation. Chinese citizens are also trafficked abroad for forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. But the most prevalent form of trafficking involves the forced labor of Chinese men, women, and children within the nation. Forced labor occurs even in government-run programs that target school-age children and in facilities such as prisons and compulsory rehabilitation centers.

James Farrer, former director of the Institute of Comparative Culture at Sophia University in Tokyo, stated that it is no surprise that various forms of trafficking exist in China:

China is like a whole world in one country. It has the first, second, and third worlds all wrapped into one. The first world exists in the top-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. People earning the top 1 percent of incomes live in those cities and have lives similar to individuals in the developed world. Persons who live in second-tier cities have upward mobility, while those in the third-world areas perform farming as well as migrant and industrial labor. China also has a fourth world made up of persons of ethnic minority and subsistence farmers who largely live in the western regions and are economically, culturally, and socially marginalized.

A study cited by the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking examined trafficking cases reported in 800 print media articles in 2006 and 2007. Fifty-eight percent of the articles reported on the sectors in which victims were trafficked. Nineteen percent of victims were trafficked for forced prostitution, 9 percent faced exploitation in the entertainment industry, hairdressing, or massage parlors, while others faced forced labor in brick kilns (9 percent), manufacturing (4 percent), domestic labor (3 percent), and forced begging (3 percent) (UNIAP, 2008). The study also indicates that the two primary trafficking methods used were fraud and deception (37 percent) as well as kidnapping (26 percent) (UNIAP, 2008). The national Ministry of Public Security (MPS) believes 50 percent to 60 percent of reported trafficking victims are trafficked into the entertainment industry, most of them girls 16 to 20 years of age (Xinhua News Agency, 2006; UNIAP, 2008).

Chinese government statistics reveal the limitations of the definition of trafficking. Under Article 240 of China’s Criminal Code, trafficking is the abduction, kidnapping, buying, fetching, sending, or transfer of a woman or child for the purpose of selling (Xinhua News Agency, 2006; UNIAP, 2008). Forms of coercion—other than abduction—are not included. Under the legal definition of trafficking, girls over the age of 14 who are in the commercial sex industry are not automatically considered trafficking victims. The law does not cover forced labor, involuntary servitude, debt bondage, or the trafficking of adult males. Sentences range from 5 years’ imprisonment to death. Article 358 prohibits forced prostitution; offenders face 5 to 10 years’ imprisonment. Article 244 bans forced labor by employers. The prescribed penalty was a fine or up to 3 years’ imprisonment until February 2011, when the government raised the prescribed penalty to 3 to 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine. Culpability was expanded to include those who recruit, transport, or assist in forcing others to labor (Ministry of Justice, 2010; U.S. Department of State, 2009, 2011).

TRAFFICKING WITHIN CHINA

Although China is a source, transit, and destination nation for human trafficking, the majority of trafficking occurs within the nation itself. Internal trafficking of Chinese citizens is estimated to exceed 250 million people (Xin, 2012). Not surprisingly, economic disparities play a role in shaping which areas are source provinces and which are destinations for human trafficking. At least partially to blame is China’s household registration (
hukou
) system. The registration system creates a caste structure in which people are defined by the place where they were born and whether they are rural/lower caste or urban/upper caste (Wong & Rigg, 2011). Historically, children inherited the
hukou
status of the head of household, but since 1998 children have been able to choose to inherit the
hukou
location and type (urban or rural) of either their mother or father (CECC, 2006). Regulations for urban residence permits have been relaxed for those who can satisfy strict housing and high income requirements. For instance, applicants must fulfill the legal requirements of a stable source of income and a stable place of residence (CECC, 2006). As Farrer noted, “You can change your registration more easily if you have gone to university, particularly if you went to a highly respected university in a large city. This was not the case twenty years ago.”

Those who are wealthy and educated experience preferential treatment, while workers who perform low-wage jobs face significant barriers in obtaining urban permanent residence. Under the regulations in one city in Zhejiang Province, unskilled laborers must live in the city for five years in order to qualify for a local
hukou
. On the other hand, business owners may qualify after paying two years of taxes that total more than $732. Skilled and educated persons do not have to reside in the city for a specified amount of time in order to qualify (CECC, 2006). As stated by Farrer, in China the shift in status within the levels of society depends on geographic mobility, but the registration obstacles make such mobility difficult and thereby solidify the inherent inequality between the worlds. The result is that workers who move to cities but cannot fulfill the requirements are left without sufficient public services like health care and education for their children. “If you don’t have an urban registration then the best segments of employment are off limits to you. It is the third and fourth worlds in China that are really left behind, placing people in untenable situations. When you have all four worlds in one nation the result is large income gaps and a potential for different forms of migration, trafficking, and forced labor.”

In an unusual move, on March 1, 2010, thirteen newspapers—including the
Southern Metropolis Daily
, the
Economic Observer
, the
Metropolis Times
of Kunming, and the
Chongqing Times
—joined in an editorial call for social reform of the
hukou
system. The appeal stated: “China has suffered from the
hukou
system for so long. We believe people are born free and should have the right to migrate freely, but citizens are still troubled by bad policies born in the era of the planned economy and [now] unsuitable” (Branigan, 2010). Immediately after the appeal ran, Zhang Hong, deputy editor of the
Economic Observer
, was fired, and other editors were given warnings. The newspapers had timed their statement to coincide with the government’s nine-day annual plenary session. However, Premier Wen Jiabao’s administration made no changes to the system (Lam, 2010; Branigan, 2010).

Although it is difficult to change one’s household registration, rural
hukou
migrants are able to obtain temporary permits allowing them to find employment in cities. Moving where there are job opportunities, those who cannot meet the requirements to attain permanent urban residence have a status similar to that of illegal migrant workers in other nations: they face discrimination; lack access to the free compulsory education, urban employment, public housing, free medical services, and retirement benefits granted to holders of urban
hukou
registration; and have minimal protection against unsafe working conditions and exploitative employers (Windrow & Guha, 2005; ADB, 2006). Farrer said that there are roughly 200 million Chinese migrant workers in China. “Migrant workers don’t have strong connections in the city and have few social resources. This creates a reliance on others to set up their jobs and makes them vulnerable to employer exploitation. As a result of badly enforced labor laws, many migrant workers face long work hours in factories as well as the threat of not receiving pay.” Children of migrant workers also face discrimination and inequality; in Beijing alone 400,000 children between the ages of 6 and 18 are without Beijing
hukou
and face restrictions on registering for most public schools (Xiaohuo, 2010).

Economic differences among provinces play a large role in the flow of human trafficking in China. An analysis of media articles on 301 trafficking cases indicated that Fujian, Shangdong, and Guangdong are the main destination provinces, while Yunnan and Guizhou are the primary source provinces for human trafficking. This pattern makes sense, as the latter have some of the lowest per-capita GDPs in China, while Fujian, Shangdong, and Guangdong have some of the highest (UNIAP, 2008). Citizens, many of them children, are victims of forced labor within China. Sometimes intercepted while traveling by deceptive persons who offer food, shelter, and work, people are then forced into situations of servitude. One such case is that of a brother and sister, Su Jinpeng (age 16) and Su Jinduo (age 18), who disappeared after traveling in Qingdao. The siblings, who were cheated out of money when they tried to purchase their return tickets, were taken in by a seemingly kind woman who gave them food and shelter for the night. She also offered the children a means to earn their return fare by selling fruit. When they agreed, the brother and sister were put on a bus and taken to a factory where they were forced to make bricks. Su Jinpeng was able to escape several days after arrival to the factory and return home. His father was able to rescue Su Jinduo a few days later (French, 2007). This story is not an anomaly. In April 2008 a Chinese newspaper uncovered a widespread child forced-labor network in Guangdong Province that reportedly trafficked thousands of children as young as 7 years old. Primarily of the Yi minority, the children were taken from poor and rural areas of Sichuan Province and then sold in labor markets to factory owners in the southeast of China (U.S. Department of State, 2009).

In 2007 at least 568 trafficking victims were discovered in brick factories and mines in the northern Shanxi and central Henan Provinces. Of that number at least 10 persons were mentally handicapped and 51 were children. Among the traffickers was Heng Tinghan, a foreman of a brick kiln in Shanxi Province detained in June 2007 for exploiting 32 persons (Taipei Times, 2007). One of his victims was Chen Chenggong (16 years old). Approached by a man at the Zhengzhou train station, Chenggong was offered a job that paid between $117 and $132 per month. He accepted the position and the next day boarded a van along with nine other workers (Yanzhao Metropolis Daily, 2007). In the van Chenggong noticed long knives and steel pipes placed under the seats—instruments that were later used to threaten and beat workers. Perhaps because they too noticed the weapons or maybe they simply sensed that something was awry, eight of the workers tried to escape when they had an opportunity—including Chenggong. “I was too nervous,” Chenggong told the
Yanzhao Metropolis Daily
. “I raced along the direction of the front of the van. Heng Tinghan and the driver chased after me. I tried to scale the iron wire fence by the expressway. Before I got up there, they reached me with their steel pipes and knives. They grabbed my foot and pulled me down” (Yanzhao Metropolis Daily, 2007).

Chenggong was then taken to work at an illegal brick factory, where the traffickers beat and threatened to kill the workers. Chenggong was forced to work from four in the morning until at least until eight at night and often until midnight. He slept in a damp kiln, and his meals consisted of water, mashed vegetable soup, and moldy bread. In order to demonstrate that the threats were not idle and to spread further fear among the workers, the kiln boss took Chenggong to another kiln to witness the murder of a worker who was not working “properly.” Chenggong said that the worker was knocked unconscious and then tossed into a mixing machine, where the body was chopped into tiny pieces within seconds. Chenggong was then told by the kiln boss to tell the other workers what he had witnessed (Yanzhao Metropolis Daily, 2007). Another particularly devastating case of child labor is that of 13 primary-school children killed in an explosion in November 2009. The children were working in a Guangxi workshop producing fireworks (U.S. Department of State, 2010).