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Source: https://www.euronews.com/2021/11/20...o&utm_campaign=feeds_news&utm_medium=referral
Rights groups in Serbia fear workers at Chinese factory were trafficked
By Daniel Bellamy with AP • Updated: 20/11/2021 - 14:24
Vietnamese workers helping build the first Chinese car tyre factory in Europe are shivering in barracks without heat, going hungry, have no money and no help from local authorities.
Around 500 of the workers are living in harsh conditions in northern Serbia as China's Shandong Linglong Tyre Co. consutructs a huge factory.
The project, which Serbian and Chinese officials have promoted as a display of the "strategic partnership" between the two countries, has already faced scrutiny from environmentalists over potentially dangerous pollution from tyre production.
Now, it has caught the attention of human rights groups in Serbia, which have warned that the workers could be victims of human trafficking or even slavery.
"We are witnessing a breach of human rights," Serbian activist Miso Zivanov of the Zrenjaninska Akcija (Zrenjanin Action) NGO told The Associated Press outside one of the warehouses where workers were living.
"Their passports and identification documents have been taken by their Chinese employers," he said. "They have been here since May, and they received only one salary," he said.
Workers sleep on bunk beds without mattresses in barracks with no heating or warm water.
They told the AP that they have received no medical care, even when they developed COVID-19-like symptoms, being told by their managers simply to remain in their rooms...
Rights groups in Serbia fear workers at Chinese factory were trafficked
By Daniel Bellamy with AP • Updated: 20/11/2021 - 14:24
Vietnamese workers helping build the first Chinese car tyre factory in Europe are shivering in barracks without heat, going hungry, have no money and no help from local authorities.
Around 500 of the workers are living in harsh conditions in northern Serbia as China's Shandong Linglong Tyre Co. consutructs a huge factory.
The project, which Serbian and Chinese officials have promoted as a display of the "strategic partnership" between the two countries, has already faced scrutiny from environmentalists over potentially dangerous pollution from tyre production.
Now, it has caught the attention of human rights groups in Serbia, which have warned that the workers could be victims of human trafficking or even slavery.
"We are witnessing a breach of human rights," Serbian activist Miso Zivanov of the Zrenjaninska Akcija (Zrenjanin Action) NGO told The Associated Press outside one of the warehouses where workers were living.
"Their passports and identification documents have been taken by their Chinese employers," he said. "They have been here since May, and they received only one salary," he said.
Workers sleep on bunk beds without mattresses in barracks with no heating or warm water.
They told the AP that they have received no medical care, even when they developed COVID-19-like symptoms, being told by their managers simply to remain in their rooms...