Across Asia, corruption and slavery form bitter web

Hotspots include India, Pakistan and Indonesia -- nations where child labor remains common -- as well as Myanmar, where the military regime oversees widespread forced labor.

An Indian campaigner said a swelling middle class there was in fact drawing more children into domestic servitude.

"Trafficking is growing," said Kailash Satyarthi, founder of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, which seeks to rescue exploited children in farming, rug-making and other industries.

"There is disempowerment of the poorest of the poor. They are marginalized, they are losing their traditional forms of livelihood, and entering into modern forms of slavery."

In Pakistan, too, child and bonded labor appeared to be spreading, not shrinking, as the economy grew, said Zulfiqar Shah of the Pakistan Institute of labor Education and Research.

"The informal economy is increasing and new people are getting trapped in debt bondage," Shah said.

A SHORTCUT TO PROFITS

Making bricks is back-breaking work that uses cheap materials but needs constant labor to tend fires and move loads. Farmers in Shanxi said they were no longer willing to do such work, leaving bosses to seek cheap labor from poorer areas.

"This isn't work locals want to do. They want to go home for meals and rest. And the wages are too low," said Gao, a farmer who lived nearly next door to a kiln owned by Wang Bingbing, now detained after one worker died there and 31 were rescued.

Endemic corruption and competitive pressures have encouraged the spread of harsh exploitation and outright slavery throughout rural China's brick industry, said Robin Munro, director of research for the China labor Bulletin in Hong Kong.