Is T&T allowing slavery of Chinese workers?

Political activists had to call in police Saturday to a temporary residence for a group of about 100 Chinese immigrant workers in Cunupia, Central Trinidad after security guards locked the gates and prevented the activists from distributing food and sanitary items to the workers.

Former MP for Chaguanas Manohar Ramsaran was among the group that was blocked by the security guards.

Ramsaran told reporters he was told that the guards had instructions to keep the steel doors locked at all times and keep the construction workers inside. He added that they security personnel also had orders not to let anyone in, especially members of the media.

Ramsaran said guards demanded that he and his colleagues hand the food and other items to the Chinese workers over a concrete wall, adding that the guards were hostile and abusive. He also accused them of attacking a local television camerman who tried to record what was going on.

Ramsaran reported that the workers scampered to the wall where they collected sacks of flour, bottled water, oil, toothpaste and tins of insecticide. He said some of the workers being held inside the compound asked him to call police, which he did.

The politician said two police officers arrived and demanded to be allowed inside. He said one of them told him later that the guards were following instructions from officials of the Beijing Liujian Construction Corporation TT Limited.

Ramsaran said the police officer told him that the guards agreed to permit entry for anyone wishing to donate food. The former MP said the living conditions for the immigrant workers are unbelievable.

"It is also inhumane to see the conditions the Chinese are under. Imagine the Chinese are now locked into the compound and they have to climb over the wall if they are to leave, that is not fair to them. Their rights are being violated.

"Are these Chinese labourers prisoners now in their own living quarters? This is a humanitarian crisis, I never thought I would have lived to see this day," he told Newsday.

The paper reported that some of the workers said they were afraid to live in the compound, claiming that armed guards often point guns at them and threaten to arrest them.

Government authorities who inspected the compound ordered the kitchen closed because of insanitary conditions but labour ministry officials said they have no jurisdiction to inspect the living quarters, which are reported to be unfit for human habitation.

(Newsday photographed this open pit latrine that the Chinese workers have to use)

The problem started on Tuesday when dozens of workers staged a public protest to demand that they be paid outstanding salaries. some of them said they wanted to return home. Since then, the agency that has hired them has applied for the workers permits of 32 of them to be revoked as a precondition to sending the workers back to china.

But Beijing Liujian said it did not owe the workers any money, insisting that the sums they complained about amounted to performance deposits that had to be forfeited for breach of contract.

The Chinese state-owned company also told local media it does not pay salaries directly to the immigrant workers but to their families in mainland China.