Forced Labor2005
China CN
Bin, along with other prisoners, was forced to make a host of goods sold in the west as a slave laborer in Chinese prisons. These included quite a few popular Christmas items such as lights and holiday clothing. Bin was forced to make lights. He noted that many of the prisoners who were not sentenced to death ended up at labor camps like this having been raped and beaten at other camps/prisons. Those individuals came to the labor camp with a host of health issues including blood-related and sexually-transmitted diseases. From his own words: "Every day, prisoners were supposed to tie copper wires tightly around a plastic tank in a fixed shape and then connect all the bulbs together. The prisoners' hands were usually bleeding. Needless to say, their diseased skin and sexually-transmitted diseases were left on the light bulbs." Note: All of the above information is a synopsis of the passages related to this slave in the book "To Plead Our Own Cause" by Kevin Bales and Zoe Trodd. Book published 2008 by Cornell University Press.
Forced Labor2004
China CN
Ying was immprisoned in China for her involvement with the Falun Gong organization, currently recognized as a terrorist/subversive group in the country. Ying was incarcerated at both the Tuanhe Prisoner Dispatch Center where she was forced to labor packaging "large quantities of chopsticks" and cosmetics. She was then transferred to the Xin'an Female Labor Camp where she wass forced to make a number of different products ranging from sweaters to stuffed animals to slippers. Inmates were forced to work, Ying said, from early morning until midnight or later. Ying was forced to room with more than a dozen people in a cell about twelve sq. meters in size and with only 8 bunks. They were forced to eat, drink, sleep and use the toilet in the room. She also noted that as a form of punishment, female prisoners were often forced outside in the winter naked until they lost consciousness from the cold. All of the above information is from "To Plead Our Own Cause" by Dr. Kevin Bales and Zoe Trodd - Cornell University Press - 2008.
Sex Trafficking2011
China CN
Name: Age: 30 Female North Korea refugee Name: Age: 40 Female North Korea refugee Two ethnic Korean Chinese living in the South were also arrested for working with the pair in China. Police also suspect that another North Korean refugee in China and a South Korean who lives overseas acted as accomplices. Police said that over a two-year period the pair acquired 70-80 North Korean women fresh from their impoverished homeland, about half of them from Chinese brokers. They paid the brokers about 3.6 million South Korean won ($3,298) for each woman. The pair allegedly forced the women into prostitution in night-time establishments they operated in the northeastern Chinese city of Qingdao between 2007 and 2009. Two female refugees from North Korea have been arrested in South Korea for allegedly forcing fellow fugitives into prostitution while they were in China, police said Tuesday.