Chinese police are cracking down on labor activists attempting to expose sweatshop-like working conditions at a local factory that manufactures shoes for Ivanka Trump’s label. One activist working on the campaign has been detained, while two others have disppeared, and are presumably in police custody, according to Western media reports.
Hua Haifeng, Li Zhao and Su Heng, who were working undercover under the direction of New York-based workers’ rights organization China Labor Watch, have been unreachable by phone over the weekend, Li Qiang, the founder of the advocacy group, told Bloomberg. The three men had been investigating labor conditions at factories that produce shoes for Ivanka Trump’s brand and other Western brands. A picture of Zhao, published in the WaPo, can be seen below:
Local police contacted Hua’s wife by phone Tuesday afternoon and told her that he’d been detained for ‘illegal eavesdropping,’ Bloomberg reported.
The factory, operated by shoe manufacturer Huajian Group and located in the southeast province of Jiangxi, is one of 15 that supposedly makes shoes for the brand founded by President Donald Trump’s eldest daughter, Bloomberg reported. In a letter sent to Ivanka Trump in April, the group alleged several labor violations at two of these factories, including that employees were forced to work at least 12 1/2 hours a day for wages below China’s legal minimum, a pay rate equal to about $1 an hour, Bloomberg said.
This post was published at Zero Hedge on Jun 1, 2017.
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