China parents urge government to resue children-report

BEIJING, June 22 (Reuters) A letter claiming to represent Chinese parents of 400 minors likely trapped in slave-like conditions in brickworks has urged the government to intensify nationwide rescue efforts, state media reported today.

The parents, mostly from rural Henan province in the country's centre, earlier posted a letter online after being ignored by police and spending their savings on a mostly fruitless search for children they said had been sold into slavery.

That plea sparked a national uproar and a probe into farmers, teenagers and children forced or cheated into harsh, often unpaid work in brick kilns and other rural worksites in Shanxi province, which neighbours Henan.

Now the parents have called for their case not to be forgotten, the China Daily reported.

''The slavery case that caused a great stir in the country is only the tip of the iceberg,'' the paper quoted the parents as saying in the second letter. ''Thousands of labourers are still suffering and in pain. Please save our children!'' Reflecting growing acknowledgement that official indifference was crucial to the trade in enslaved workers, two Chinese labour inspectors were detained by police yesterday for handing over a minor to one of the brickworks at the heart of an enslavement scandal, the official Xinhau news agency reported.

The officials from Yongji city in Shanxi were detained for dereliction of duty and abuse of office, Xinhua said.

The pair, Hou Junyuan and Shang Guangze, worked as inspectors for the local labour and social security bureau and their detention ''was related to a Henan migrant worker minor who, while being sent home by the labour department, was again illegally introduced to another brick maker,'' Xinhua said.

The brief report did not explain whether the two were paid for handing over the minor, whose age was not given.

The Communist Party leadership of Shanxi has urged a crackdown on abductions and scams to exploit workers, the official People's Daily reported.

Reuters KK GC0902