Linda Young, Taiyuan, China (AHN) - Two months after the scandal first broke that brick factories in China had enslaved people to work, another 359 people have been rescued from slavery in Shanxi province, officials said Monday.

Among those freed from working as slaves in illegal brick factories were 15 child workers and 121 mentally handicapped workers. That brings the total of number of people rescued from slavery since early June to 1,340, of those 367 have been mentally handicapped.

People, including children as young as 8-years-old, were kidnapped into slavery with promises of well paying factory jobs. However, they were sold instead as slaves for as much as $65 to kiln owners, according to Associated Press reports.

The captives were barely fed and were not paid for their labor in unlicensed brick kilns.
Brick factory slavery became known after more than 400 parents used the Internet to plead for help in finding their children who had been kidnapped into slavery at small brick factories in Shanxi and Henan provinces.

Several of Communist China's government agencies participated in finding and freeing the slaves.

Investigators from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, the Ministry of Public Security and the All-China Federation of Trade Unions inspected 277,000 brick kilns, mines and workshops employing 12.67 million workers to find and rescue the 1,340 enslaved citizens, Xinhua news reports.

Police found that 24.2 percent of the workplaces they inspected did not have licenses.

Some 147 people have been arrested and 98,000 workplaces have been ordered to give about 1.5 million workers $17 million in overdue wages. As a result, at one brick kiln, which is at the center of the slavery investigation, one employee was sentenced to death, the foreman of the factory was given life in prison and the kiln manager was given nine years in jail. In addition, 95 Communist Party government officials in Shanxi province have been given punishment for their involvement in the slave labor scheme.

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