Chinese labor activist and investigator Hua Haifeng went missing Sunday while traveling to look into labor abuses at a Chinese shoe manufacturing plant. According to NPR, the factory makes shoes for Ivanka Trump’s brand of shoes as well as a few others.
On Tuesday, police in the province called Hua's wife, Deng Guimian.
"They said, 'You only need to know that your husband has been arrested on criminal charges,' " Deng told NPR by phone from her home in Hubei province. " 'You don't need to know anything other than that.' "
Hua works for China Labor Watch, a New York-based group that investigates violations of workers' rights. China Labor Watch says two of Hua's colleagues are also missing and presumed detained.
According to the report, Deng had yet to tell the couple’s two young children, afraid to upset them. Chinese human and labor rights violations are not this current administration’s fault as they have been going on for decades; but having a surrogate “First Lady” who is clearly as corrupt as her current conflict of interest in chief father is likely a step in the wrong direction. The America’s First first family seems to believe the best way to treat Americans is to ship jobs to other countries where things like “overtime pay” are not even on the table. NPR spoke with China Labor Watch’s director Li Qiang:
He says he has evidence that workers at the factory were forced to work overtime without pay. One instance happened, he says, after a batch of shoes was found to have defects.
"The workers all wanted to leave," he says, "but they couldn't, because if they did, they'd be fired. So they were forced to work until 1:30 a.m., and they had to go back to work the same morning at 7:10 a.m."
Qiang wants to submit evidence of these violations to Ivanka Trump and hopes that her influence can help ameliorate workers’ conditions. Daily Kos community member Lefty Coaster has an update on the DNC’s statement surrounding these events.