Internet Protest Frees Slaves In China

China, land of cheap tube socks and sole supplier to Wal Mart (at least it seems so), has lots of problems. One of them is the use of slave labor to manufacture goods for both domestic and foreign consumption. Though the government of China claims it is vigorously trying to eradicate the abominable practice, there are still lots of incidents of people being held as slaves in factories and farms.

I am heartened to see that hundreds of men and boys were freed from captivity as slaves in a brickyard by the Internet. It seems that 400 parents posted a complaint on the Internet that their children had been kidnapped and sold into slavery. The resulting outrage caused authorities to take action and they arrested almost 30 managers and supervisors in the facility.

So far 750 workers, some of them children as young as 8 years old have been rescued but the total is said to be much higher.