Chinese workers at Delong in Indonesia (Photo credit: China Labor Watch)
“You don’t know until you go, but when you go, you never want to work there, you never want to come out to work again.” He Ping, who worked for a Chinese company in Indonesia and has now returned to China, told Voice of America.
The New York-based China Labor Watch released a report Friday (April 30) on forced labor of Chinese workers in the “Belt and Road” region amid the new pandemic, noting that as China expands its power around the world, it is also expanding its pattern of human rights abuses globally. Chinese-owned companies have brought large numbers of Chinese workers to work in various countries, using their usual practices of withholding passports and hiring workers on non-working visas to control labor; these practices have exacerbated forced labor during the New Guinea virus pandemic.
He Ping works for a nickel smelter that is part of the Chinese Yongqing Group in Indonesia. In October 2013, Chinese Communist Party President Xi Jinping first proposed the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” in Indonesia. “The relationship between the two countries was upgraded to a comprehensive strategic partnership.
He Ping, 53, went to work for Indonesia’s Yongqing Group’s Weidabai Nickel Co. in October 2019 and was supposed to return home at the end of March 2020. He was left behind to continue working after the outbreak.
“There was a virus on the site,” He Ping said of last July. “At that time, they wouldn’t say, and they couldn’t say it blindly, they all said it was a viral cold, first others had it, then I had it too, (Q: Did you get the New Crown virus (the Chinese Communist virus)? I can’t say this, you say so, there is no evidence, anyway, it is a strange disease.”
A month or so later he followed other workers to evacuate back home, and it was during a New Crown test in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta before waiting for his flight that he learned he had been hit – and was tested positive.
Screenshot of text message from He Ping, a worker at China Yongqing Group’s nickel mining plant in Indonesia (Photo credit: China Labor Watch)
“After I got the nucleic acid test report, my heart sank and I really just wanted to cry,” He Ping said in a text message to a friend. He was in isolation there for 66 days.
“That tour bus took them to the airport. There was nothing I could do, I watched, I was on two crutches, watching the bus slowly drive toward the airport.” He Ping recalled.
He Ping’s crutches were put on in July after he felt sick and wanted to see a doctor at the infirmary and accidentally fell outside.
“You go to the dormitory to rest,” the doctor told He Ping, who was carried on a stretcher. He lay in the dormitory for more than a full month, until he returned home to see the doctor to know that the crotch joint bones broken, “there is no treatment, the whole delayed 123 days, a long time bone necrosis, delayed.” He Ping said painfully.
Now he had a replacement surgery and replaced it with a ceramic artificial joint. However, although he threw away the crutches, but can no longer do welders, “squatting down, not to go to the toilet. Burning welding, must squat down.” He Ping said.
Looking back on the year, He Ping said, “A total of 8 or 9 months of work, earned 80,000 or 90,000 yuan (RMB), excluding various expenses, cash to get the card only 70,000 or 80,000 yuan.” But he paid nearly 70,000 yuan out of pocket for the replacement surgery.
Now He Ping’s only hope is that the company will reimburse him for this money. But He Ping, who has hired a second lawyer to fight the lawsuit, feels that there seems little hope because the company does not recognize this as a workplace injury.
“The foreign countries are poor conditions at home, can not earn money, in the domestic wages earn less,” He Ping concluded. “They all think so well abroad, but it’s not the same thing. When you get to work there, as soon as you get off the plane and do a week to 10 days or so, everyone feels regret. It’s useless to regret, your passport is taken away.”
According to Indonesia’s Labor Law, employers must guarantee the rights of foreign employees to social security including pensions, health care, life insurance, and accident insurance.
If what happened to He Ping may have had the serendipity of an epidemic plus an accident, it is common for Chinese workers to have their passports seized by their companies when they work overseas.
More than 95 percent of Chinese workers have their passports taken away by companies
“Most, almost more than 95 percent of (Chinese) workers, his passport is taken away by the company. The company is taking their passports away directly.” Mr. Huang, a volunteer worker in Indonesia, told Voice of America.
“So many people go home and they can’t leave on their own, they have to apply to the company, and if the company doesn’t let you leave, you can’t leave. Even after someone sneaks out there is no way, he still has to go back.” Mr. Huang, who belongs to a local Christian group, said. “Because you have to apply for help with the embassy, the embassy still has to go and contact the company first, then you still have to go back to the company.” He added.
This is not only the case in Indonesia, but also in Algeria. “As soon as you get off the plane, you ask for your passport, almost always.” Zheng Weijun, who works for a Chinese-owned company in Algeria, told Voice of America.
Withholding passports is against Chinese law. China’s Passport Law, implemented in 2007, states that a passport is a document proving the nationality and identity of a Chinese citizen, and that “no organization or individual may …… illegally seize a passport.”
Zheng Weijun, 44, is a plumber and electrician, a native of Henan, who first worked in Wuhan Linxi, Algeria, and then went to work for China Railway Corporation. He said that by May of this year he worked outside the full 3 years, did not return home.
Last year, his two-year contract with Lin Xi expired because of the epidemic, although the contract provides that the company is responsible for travel expenses to and from the company, but the boss said, to go back to have to pay for their own tickets, “to more than 30,000 (yuan)”, so he chose to stay and transfer to work in China Railway.
“The contract was something I had read before,” Zheng Weijun said. “It said that if there was war and natural disasters, Party A was responsible for sending Party B back home, and then the boss said this (epidemic) was an uncontrollable factor, so he wouldn’t pay for the airfare.”
After the contract expired Zheng Weijun got his passport, but the visa has expired, in his own words he is a “black account”.
“We are black, (because) is a business visa (certificate) well. The legal one is a work visa (permit), the illegal one is a tourist visa (permit), now there is no tourism, it’s all business visa,” he said.
According to Algerian visa regulations, business visas are issued to foreigners who need to travel, such as businessmen, company representatives or employees of foreign companies, but the holders are not entitled to work in Algeria.
“Black people” who work illegally on business visas
“In this country, small companies are more black, and most companies are black,” Zheng Weijun said. He has not yet handed over his passport to his new company, but he will eventually have to rely on the company to help him solve the “black household” exit problem.
“If you go back to your country, your boss is responsible for buying you customs,” Zheng Weijun said. “I heard our company people did, is to let you go to prison squatting two or three days, and then hang a sign, as if similar to plead guilty, stay two or three days and then release you, sign a letter, the Public Security Bureau (police station) similar to the preparation of cases later, you can go.”
Indonesia is the world’s highest reserves of nickel laterite. Nickel ore is not only the main raw material for stainless steel, but also a resource that new energy electric vehicle battery manufacturers compete for. 2014 Indonesia introduced a ban on raw ore exports (processed minerals can be exported); current President Joko came to power and announced a ban on nickel ore exports on January 1, 2020. The Indonesian government sees this as a good opportunity to transform itself from a major exporter of raw materials to a major modern manufacturing country.
Six Chinese companies are reportedly engaged in nickel mining, smelting and rolling production in Indonesia, of which only two have an annual output of more than one million tons: Qingshan Group and Jiangsu Delong Nickel Industry Co.
Delong is the second largest Chinese-owned company engaged in nickel production in Indonesia. An “anonymous fugitive” (interviewee requested this title) who escaped from Delong said that he was reported by workers for selling old cables of the company and was twice sent to the local police station in Indonesia by Delong; the second time, he was imprisoned by the police for two months and then sent back to Delong; but after he returned, he continued to be imprisoned by Delong for eight months, and was imprisoned for a total of In total, he was imprisoned for 10 months. He said he wrote a confession of guilt and was willing to accept the punishment, but Dragon did not give him any explanation.
“Last May, it was the police who sent me back before Eid al-Fitr, and I was kept until I ran away from Delong on Jan. 27 this year, when I took down the back window bars and jumped out of the back window.”
During his escape, he tried to ask the Chinese Embassy in Indonesia for a replacement passport on the grounds that he had lost it, but later found out that the company had reported “the names of all the Chinese workers to the embassy, and the embassy will not issue you a replacement passport if they find your name. He said.
He says he is not the only one who has fled. “Last May one worker ran to the Indonesian capital Jakarta to get a replacement passport from the Chinese embassy and was persuaded by the embassy to go back to the company, and he returned to Delonghi to have his phone confiscated and be locked up.”
Three more Chinese workers ran away from Delong in January and March this year, and with no way to get a replacement passport from the Chinese embassy or consulate, they are now considering other ways to return home.
Mr. Huang, a volunteer with an Indonesian Christian group, said that as far as he knows, a large percentage of Chinese workers in Indonesia are illegal workers and their data cannot be found in the legal statistics. “As long as 90 percent of the people I contacted, his visa was not a work visa, it was a business visa,” he said.
Under Indonesian law, a business visa is a single-entry visa valid for 60 days that can be extended four times, but does not allow employment in Indonesia.
“That’s why they can’t go back,” Wong said. “They have problems with their own status, and he has to go to appeal itself, so the longer they stay the more risky it is, and the immigration people can always find an excuse to arrest you because you have problems with your status, so the company also takes this and turns it into a handle for the workers, and you have to renew your visa through the company.”
Mr. Huang has been helping stranded Chinese workers in Indonesia for more than a year. At the time of the interview, Mr. Huang said there were at least 80 more Chinese workers stranded in Jakarta, while 3 or 400 workers at DXN Steel, a subsidiary of Delonghi, had contracts that had expired and were still unable to arrange their return.
The anonymous fugitive from Delong said that the Indonesian government should be well aware of entering Indonesia to work with business visas, “so many, thousands of people coming over for business visas, and the immigration office – because business visas are only for two months, so many people coming over for extensions, you would not know?”
After the outbreak, the Indonesian government introduced a new policy that business visas can be extended until the end of the outbreak.
This reporter sent a letter of inquiry to the Chinese ambassador to Indonesia, Xiao Qian, seeking clarification or confirmation on the withholding of passports, non-working visas and the detention of employees by Delong, and also sent the same letter of inquiry to Qingshan Group and Delong, but no response was received by press time.
“One Belt, One Road” Exports Model of Human Rights Violations
In his speech at this year’s Boao Forum on April 19, Communist Party President Xi Jinping said, “‘One Belt, One Road’ is a sunny path for everyone to move forward together.”
Li Qiang, executive director of China Labor Watch, a New York-based Chinese labor rights organization, said Xi’s “One Belt, One Road” actually extends China’s pattern of human rights abuses while expanding its power to the world.
On Friday (April 30), China Labor Watch released an investigative report that said China’s “Belt and Road” program, which covers about two-thirds of the world’s countries, has brought large numbers of Chinese workers to work around the world, resulting in serious forced labor.
International Labor Organization standards consider the withholding of identification documents to be an indicator of forced labor, along with other means such as restrictions on freedom of movement, intimidation and threats.
When Chinese workers’ right to freedom of movement is even temporarily denied, they have no more choice than to endure all the injustices and injustices they encounter in their lives and work in foreign countries, as well as sudden accidents.
China Labor Watch interviewed 22 workers working on Belt and Road projects in Indonesia, Algeria, Singapore, Jordan, Pakistan, Serbia and other countries from August 2020 to April 2021 and found that.
“passport withholding, restrictions on freedom of movement, overtime work, no holidays, unpaid wages, being forced to work on illegal visas, deceptive recruitment practices and false promises, isolation from local communities, intimidation and threats, mandatory high liquidated damages if workers want to leave, no medical treatment for illness and injury, poor living and working conditions, labor protection and Inadequate labor protection and safety equipment, no reasonable grievance and advocacy mechanism, limited freedom of expression for workers, and punishment of workers who lead protests”, etc.
A blind worker at Delonghi Nickel in Indonesia (Photo credit: China Labor Watch)
A Chinese worker at Delong Nickel Indonesia, reportedly injured his left eye while working on July 27, 2020. He approached the site manager of the subcontracting company and asked to see a doctor, who not only refused to let him go for treatment, but also called the resident security guards to detain the worker for more than three hours, and later sent him to a hospital at the worker’s strong request, but the local medical conditions were too poor to treat the ocular trauma. The next day, the worker requested that arrangements be made to return to his home country for treatment, but the subcontractor said that the main contractor would not allow the worker to return and told him that “if you’re blind, you’re blind.”
Aaron Halegua, an attorney and fellow at the Center for Asian American Studies at New York University School of Law, argued that being forced to work constantly, or without the freedom to leave, is forced labor under international or U.S. law. This implies not only physical coercion, but also psychological or economic coercion,” he said. For example, an employer can threaten that if the worker leaves the job, the worker will be arrested and deported by immigration authorities. Or, they may be subject to economic coercion because leaving their jobs would require them to pay off large debts or forfeit wages.”
The worker was too afraid to give media interviews for fear of repression by the Chinese government. The Indonesian volunteer interviewed by Voice of America said his relatives in the country have been threatened by public security officials to refrain from publishing articles about the situation of stranded Chinese workers in Indonesia.
China Labor Watch said protests by stranded Chinese workers demanding to be allowed to return to their home countries have erupted in Indonesia, Jordan and Serbia since the new crown pandemic last year.
Meanwhile, the Communist Party’s Belt and Road project in Indonesia continues to expand, including Qingshan Group and Delong Nickel both posting online job openings for a variety of positions ranging from apprentices to workers to engineers and managers.
According to the China Foreign Labor Service Development Report released by China’s Ministry of Commerce in January, “By the end of 2019, China’s foreign labor service cooperation business had sent a cumulative total of 480,000 people of all kinds, with 992,000 people working outside at the end of the year, and by the end of 2019, China’s cumulative dispatch of all kinds of laborers had exceeded 10 million. “
However, China Labor Watch said this figure does not include the number of people who went abroad to work through illegal snakeheads, black agents or on their own.
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