China province head apologises in slave labour storm

BEIJING, June 22 (Reuters) The governor of the Chinese province shaken by a slave labour scandal publicly apologised to victims today, while parents of missing children reportedly urged officials to intensify rescue efforts.

Yu Youjun, chief of Shanxi in the country's north, ''expressed his apologies to brother migrant workers and their families who suffered harm'', the official Xinhua news agency reported.

His words did not augur well for his political prospects.

''I'll take the blame on the scandal,'' he said.

His public penance followed weeks of national uproar over the plight of farmers, teenagers and children forced or cheated into harsh, often unpaid work in brick kilns and other rural worksites across Shanxi.

So far Shanxi police have rescued 359 workers from the scorching brickworks, including 12 children and nine whose age was being checked, Xinhua reported today, citing police.

The report did not give the children's ages, but Chinese laws define those younger than 16 as child labourers.

Police in neighbouring Henan province, where many victims came from, have rescued more than 200 others.

Yu's gesture appeared unlikely to douse public and media anger over the exploitation and the officials who ignored it or even took part.

A letter claiming to represent parents of 400 minors presumed trapped in slave-like conditions in brickworks urged the government to intensify nationwide rescue efforts, 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. ''Thousands of labourers are still suffering and in pain.

Please save our children!'' The parents, mostly from rural Henan, posted an earlier 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.

Their plea sparked national outrage over the forced labour, which observers said grew out of deep corruption across Shanxi, where deadly illegal coal mines have also flourished for years.

Police detained two labour inspectors yesterday for handing over a minor to one of the brickworks at the heart of the scandal, Xinhua reported. The officials from Yongji city in Shanxi were accused of dereliction of duty and abuse of office.

By today, Shanxi police had detained 35 people for involvement in the abuses, 10 of whom had been formally arrested, the state news agency said. Police were hunting another 20.

''What this shows is that local governance is in a terminal state of corruption in these areas,'' said Robin Munro of the China Labour Bulletin in Hong Kong, which has documented abuses in brickworks and mines across Shanxi.

In the coal industry, where thousands die in accidents each year, pay-offs to officials were entrenched, Munro said.

''What we're seeing with slave labour is the bottom of a whole spectrum of abuses that affect the industry as a whole.'' REUTERS SKB RK1536