Thirty-one people received prison sentences ranging from one year and a half to five years for participating in a forced labor scandal, uncovered in early June in north China's Shanxi Province.

Four government employees in Hongtong County and Yongji City were sentenced to two to three years in prison after local courts convicted them of power abuse and dereliction of duty, according to the Shanxi Provincial Higher People's Court.

The four indicted include two local industrial and commercial department employees, one policeman and one worker from the department of labor and social security.

Twenty-seven others, including brickyard managers and foremen, were sentenced to up to five years in prison for using child labor and committing child abuse in the form of beatings, the higher court said.

The use of forced laborers hit the headlines after more than 400 parents in central China's Henan Province posted an online petition. They pleaded for help in rescuing their children who had been sold as forced laborers in small brick kilns in Shanxi and Henan provinces.

More than 570 people, including 41 children, were rescued from the illegal brick kilns in the two provinces. Nearly 160 people have been arrested in a police sweep after the government ordered a nationwide investigation and rescue campaign.

A total of 95 Party officials in Shanxi have been punished in the wake of the slave labor scandal. Some were expelled from the Party, or removed from government posts, or given disciplinary warnings for lax supervision and dereliction of duty.

In mid-July, local courts sentenced 29 suspects involved in the scandal. Zhao Yanbing, an employee of a brick kiln in Hongtong County, was sentenced to death after being convicted of beating a mentally handicapped man to death last November. His kiln boss received a nine-year prison term.

(Xinhua News Agency August 2, 2007)