Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Workers with intellectual disabilities are forced to work day and night in the brick factories in Hubei 208 Yuan a year (a few cents a day), well below the statutory minimum wage. A TV report denounces that little or nothing has changed since the slave labour scandal erupted in June 2007, when police rescued about 570 people enslaved in brick kilns in Henan and Shanxi, including 50 children, forced to work up to 16 hours a day without pay and with little food, under the supervision of private security guards and dogs to prevent escape.

According to China Labour Bulletin, a prestigious publication for workers' rights, the situation arose when the summer of 2008 a worker was beaten to death by other workers in a brick factory in Huangpi, north of Wuhan. The local inspection office begun investigations which revealed about 5 thousand illegal workers, who were later regularized.

It has also been revealed that in February 2008, a certain Ye Huabing enticed a dozen mentally disabled and homeless at the Hankou Railway Station in Wuhan and brought them to his factory in Huangpi, where he forced them to work all day without pay. In July, one of them was tortured by his own comrades because they had been disturbed during the midday break. When Ye discovered the corpse, he immediately buried in a nearby field. His identity is still unknown.

Two months later, police arrested Ye and 6 people believed to be involved in the murder. In September 2009, the principal manager Longhai Lin Ye was sentenced to life imprisonment and 3 years in prison for forcing him to work and another 3 years for having destroyed evidence of the murder.

The report was aired on 25 January and on the same day, the local authorities claimed to have immediately launched an operation to "rectify the work and stamp out illegal criminal behaviour", ensuring that a campaign against organized crime was already in progress.