“You'll Be Fired if You Refuse” - Human Rights Watch

couldn’t even sit straight when he got here. Both were beaten because they
resisted work underground that they thought was unsafe. Their injuries
weren’t too severe; they had some inflammation, some aggravation of their
muscle tissue. Both were in a fair amount of pain.
In terms of reporting to the police, that’s on the patient. We can’t report for
them. And it doesn’t happen often, because the Chinese are in a hurry to
bribe, to keep the information from getting out. The driver who brought
them here didn’t tell us exactly what happened, because this is just too
sensitive. He wasn’t willing to report that they had been beaten by the
Chinese bosses. It was only later, once we had been questioning [the
miners] about their injuries for awhile, that it came out. People will easily
lie if money is involved; their wages are small and they fear being fired, so a
bribe works well. Beatings are generally not reported at all, even to us. It is
only when there has been a serious injury—when there is tissue damage or
an open wound. This happens perhaps every month. 237
Several miners made clear, however, that their Chinese bosses treated them well. At times,
the relations with the Chinese supervisors were deemed better than those with other
multinational corporations. At the same time, while assaults at the Chinese mines were
relatively isolated incidents, no miner interviewed by Human Rights Watch from a non-
Chinese mine said that a supervisor had subjected him to physical abuse.
When asked about reports of physical abuse, the police commissioner in Kitwe said that
“the Chinese are treated the same as anyone else. If we receive a complaint, we pursue it.”
He said he had received few complaints, however, and that most of those that he did
receive involved fighting between two Chinese residents. 238
237 Human Rights Watch interview with nurse at Sino Zam hospital, Kitwe, November 2010. The precise date has been
omitted to protect the workers against reprisal.
238 Human Rights Watch interview with police commissioner of Kitwe, Kitwe, November 17, 2010.
“YOU’LL BE FIRED IF YOU REFUSE” 74