Slave Labor and Kidnap: It Only Gets worse

The 400 fathers hunting for their kidnapped children have written a second letter of appeal (here’s the China Daily story). You may recall that the first letter was posted on a popular internet forum and almost singlehanded served to spark the current crackdown, which has so far seen almost 600 workers freed and 160 people arrested. What scary about the letter is it’s main point: that this is only the tip of the iceberg and that the government needs to redouble its efforts to find and free what they say are thousands of others being held under the same appalling conditions. They also say some of the “slaves” were moved before the raids after tip offs to their controllers. I think they may be right. As Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch points out, “This is only one raid in one industry in one province and they find 500. ” What if there were a series of raids, across China extending to mining, construction even hallowed manufacturing, what new horrors might be turned up then?