Dal giornale  Bejiing Today: scoperti nello Xinjiang, a Toksun,  disabili mentali che erano stati schiavizzati per lavori pesanti in una fabbrica chimica. Il tizio che aveva escogitato il sistema è stato arrestato, si chiama Li Xinglin. Il modello cinese continua a sfornare mostri. L’articolo:

Officials fall for ignoring enslavement of the disabled

y Han Manman

Five government officials were sacked or warned Wednesday after media exposed a group of mental patients laboring as slaves in a factory located in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Police apprehended Li Xinglin, who ran the chemical factory in Toksun county, and his son together in Sichuan Province last weekend.

Li was arrested on suspicion of slavery and abuse. As of press time, his wife was also in police custody.

The Toksun government said the factory has been closed and its 12 workers rescued.

Zeng Lingquan, the owner of an unauthorized charitable organization in Sichuan, has also been arrested. Zeng signed a confession stating he sold the patients to the factory.

The local government said it believes Zeng may have sold dozens of other patients to factories throughout the country.

“Since 1996, Zeng Lingquan has sent at least 70 mentally disabled people to work in Beijing, Tianjin and other cities,” said Yi Hongqu, an official with the Disabled Person’s Association of Quxian County, citing Zeng’s confession.

Earlier reports said the 12 workers put in long hours, suffered regular beatings and were given the same food as dogs.

None of those employed were ever paid. Some had been working for up to four years and were beaten when they attempted to flee.

Li Xinglin said he paid Zeng’s agency 9,000 yuan for the delivery of five of the workers and an additional 300 yuan per worker per month.

His factory is not the first exposed to be using ill people as slaves.

Media have reported several other cases of forced labor since the government pledged to crack down on the practice after a 2007 scandal involving more than 1,000 beggars and mentally disabled people found working at a brick kiln in a Shanxi Province.

“The country encourages and subsidizes factories and companies that employ disabled people. However, the case is totally different since they were forced to work and abused,” said Meng Weina, the founder of Hui Ling Community Center for the Mentality Disabled, a non-governmental organization that aids people with learning disabilities.

“To see this exposed time and again is infuriating,” Meng said. The recurring tragedies show the dire conditions faced by mentally disabled people throughout the nation, he said.

“They have talked about stopping this for many years. The government needs to step up and take some real action. The police don’t investigate reports unless they are filed by the abused worker himself, and apparently these mentally disabled people are unable to report such reports,” Meng said.

Bai Li, a law professor at Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, said the case revealed just how little supervision the government engages in to prevent slavery and how little is done nationally to aid those with mental disabilities.

While the central government has passed many regulations intended to protect such people, the wording is vague and too general to enforce, she said.

The government-established social shelters, for example, only to aid homeless beggars in the city. However, these are off limits to disabled persons living in the countryside or whose families cannot afford to pay for the related help and protection.

Bai called on the government to pass meaningful regulation to protect people with mental disabilities – regulations that can be enforced.

“Only by stepping up, passing good laws and seeing that they are enforced will such exploitative tragedies be prevented,” Bai said.