China Labour Bulletin appears in the following article. Copyright remains with the original publisher.
The News. Pakistan.
BEIJING: "Arise, ye who refuse to be slaves!" go the stirring words that open China's national anthem.
But shocking images of men and children padlocked and brutalised in stifling brickworks have shown that even in this officially socialist nation, where workers are supposed to rule, slavery has secured a niche in the galloping market economy.
If, nearly six decades after the communist revolution, China can sustain even small-scale slavery, what of other parts of Asia where forced labour has deep roots that have long defied rights campaigns?
Observers of workers trapped in forced labour say economic growth does not necessarily spell the end of slavery, and small brick-makers across Asia often exploit trapped labour.
"The number-one predictor is corruption," said Kevin Bales, an expert on the problem who is president of Free the Slaves, a Washington DC-based group. "You can certainly see economic growth and slavery going hand in hand when that primary criterion of corruption is there."
In north China's Shanxi province, the centre of the national scandal, witnesses said paying off officials was normal in this region dotted with small coal mines and belching factories.
Bales, who has studied slavery in brickworks across Pakistan and India, said a similar brew of bribery and lax law enforcement also lubricated the grim business there.
More than three-quarters of the world's estimated 12.3 million forced labourers are in Asia and the Pacific, where 9.5 million people are trapped by debt bondage, trafficking and other coercion, and the International Labour Organisation estimates.
Bales estimated the global slave workforce at about 27 million. Hotspots include India, Pakistan and Indonesia nations where child labour is common as well as Myanmar.
An Indian campaigner said a swelling middle class was drawing more children into domestic servitude. "Trafficking is growing," said Kailash Satyarthi, founder of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, which seeks to rescue exploited children in farming, rug-making and other industries.
"The informal economy is increasing and new people are getting trapped in debt bondage," Shah said.
Making bricks is back-breaking work that uses cheap materials but needs constant labour to tend fires and move loads. Farmers in Shanxi said they were no longer willing to do such work, leaving bosses to seek cheap labour from poorer areas.
"This isn't work locals want to do. They want to go home for meals and rest. And the wages are too low," said Gao, a farmer who lived nearly next door to a kiln owned by Wang Bingbing, now detained after one worker died there and 31 were rescued.
Endemic corruption and competitive pressures have encouraged the spread of harsh exploitation and outright slavery throughout rural China's brick industry, said Robin Munro, director of research for the China Labour Bulletin in Hong Kong.
"Factory owners have been driving production costs down and slavery is a short-cut to that," he said.
"If you're not doing it, your competitor down the road probably is."
That theme was echoed in India, Pakistan and Nepal, where kiln owners have also sought to increase profits by turning to forced labour, said Aidan McQuade, director of Anti-Slavery International in London, who has visited slave brickworks in Nepal.