What shocked Chinese society was the virtual slavery practiced in some brick kilns in Shanxi, a province just a few hundred kilometers from the national capital.

But China's reaction cannot be limited to moral condemnation and criminal penalties for those enslaving children and the underworld rings abducting the children from impoverished villages.

The dark world of the Shanxi brick kilns reveals some failures that are probably even larger than the specific problem.

Similar shocking activities may continue here and there if the loopholes in the system are not closed. One loophole is the lack of an investigative reporting. And the other is corruption among law-enforcement authorities.

Indeed, one of the first to expose the offenses in the Shanxi brick kilns was a journalist with a local television network in Shanxi's nearby Henan Province, where missing children had been reported from time to time. The journalist is Fu Zhenzhong.

During his undercover investigative trips to Shanxi, Fu, a reporter with 10 years of professional experience, claimed to have seen "nearly 1,000 child slaves" in the local brick kilns, many abducted from Henan Province. The children who have been set free still have to confirm Fu's account.

Fu is a hero among journalists. The information that he provided to his viewers surpassed much of the national and large city-based media coverage that only caters to middle-class consumer interests - expensive houses, European tours, Italian fashions.

But the cruel fact is that only once or twice a year does Chinese media produce investigative reports like Fu's. As Chinese cities are inundated with glossy promotions, people forget the problems behind their new wealth and enjoyment, especially the poverty and injustice in the countryside just a few hundred kilometers from where they live.

The lack of investigative reporting also has to do with the fact that, despite the award ceremonies that appear in the press almost daily, there has never been an award for investigative journalism. In a society where saving face is traditionally more valued than telling the truth, sometimes people have to wait for a problem to reach shocking proportions before they can react to it.

As for the lack of legal enforcement, as quoted by China Youth Daily, Fu said the biggest difficulty he encountered was "the cold-heartedness of law-enforcement authorities".

Government departments in Shanxi "showed little concern and were only passive about taking any action" against local brick kiln owners' offenses. Some, he said, "attempted in many ways" to block efforts to rescue the child slaves. Fu even told of a labor inspector's direct exploitation of child workers.

The shock goes beyond the report of the extent of the Shanxi slavery. It reveals that the cause of such rampant challenges to modern law is not only the private kiln owners' greed or the market economy. Things have gotten this bad because of the collaboration between some local officials and the mafia that runs the brick trade.

This, once again, reflects the enormous task of running China's massive civil service and keeping it clean from corruption.

To do so, sooner or later, the nation will begin to appreciate the usefulness of investigative journalism.

E-mail: younuo@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 06/18/2007 page4)