China is hiding a secret network of more than 1,000 slave labour prison camps, in which dissidents are imprisoned without trial and forced to produce consumer goods for export to the west, Al Jazeera reports.
The investigation states that an estimated 5.5m men and women are held in what some experts describe as “state sponsored slavery”. Al Jazeera’s report says work from these camps has contributed to the country’s economic boom.
Over the past 20 years, China has become the biggest exporter of consumer goods in the world, much of it to the US. The prisoners, many of whom have been held without trial, make a vast range of products for export — from T-shirts, to children’s toys.
The report includes testimony from a woman who fled to the US after being released from three years of forced labour due to her religious beliefs. The pastor at her new US church describes her shock when he pulled out a set of Christmas lights – she had been forced to make Christmas lights during her imprisonment.
Charles Lee, a former prison inmate, told the programme: “We were not paid at all, we were forced. If anyone refused to work, they would be beaten, some people were beaten to death.”
But according to another former inmate, jailed for 19 years for criticising communism, consumer goods are only the second-most important product from the camps.
He says propaganda in the camps makes it clear the most important “product” is the mind of the person who is released: The former inmate who is no longer a threat to the Chinese state, crushed into obedience by their servitude.
