In May 2024, Wei Dali was found by the police. Photo by Southern Weekly reporter Wu Xiaofei
In the past two months, Wei Dali has become a "celebrity" in Qianwei Yao Village, Tianying Town, Jieshou City, Anhui Province. When the older villagers get together, they inevitably talk about seeing Wei Dali again after 20 years.
In early May 2024, Wei Dali, who had been away from home for 20 years, was rescued from a brick kiln yard by the police of the neighboring town police station. Whether it is a relative or a neighbor, when they see Wei Dali again, they all clearly feel his abnormality. In the description of him by everyone, the most frequent repetitions are: unwilling to speak, afraid to see people, haggard, and dull.
Wei Dali's elder brother found that his younger brother had many old injuries on his body, and repeatedly mentioned that "people with long arms" wanted to beat people. He believes that his younger brother "eats poorly, lives poorly, does hard work, and does not pay wages for many years" in the brickyard.
When the village cadres and others handed over the matter of claiming Wei Dali to the police station, they also found that there were four or five middle-aged male workers in the brickyard where the incident occurred in a similar situation to Wei Dali, and they could see that their behavior was obviously different from ordinary people. And these people are all "employed" by Zhang, the contractor, to be responsible for the loading of bricks in the brickyard.
In July 2024, Zhang told Southern Weekend on the phone that the local police demanded that the above-mentioned worker immediately terminate his labor relationship with the worker on the grounds that he was mentally abnormal and unsuitable for relevant labor, and required him to pay more than 200,000 yuan as the overall labor remuneration for the above-mentioned worker's previous work, otherwise compulsory measures would be taken against him.
Wei Dali received 45,000 yuan. The village cadres explained that the money was the income of Wei Dali's labor in moving bricks in the brickyard for more than a year, and it was also the largest amount that the police and village cadres had won based on Zhang's ability to pay based on the situation of other rescued workers.
"Missing"
On May 8, Wei Mingli, a former village cadre of Weiyao Village, received a call from the person in charge of the Shuzhuang Police Station in Jieshou City. On the phone, the person in charge mentioned Wei Dali, who had been "missing" for 20 years, and checked the information of Wei Dali and his family members with Wei Mingli, and then sent a photo of Wei Dali working in a brickyard.
In the photo, a shirtless middle-aged man stands next to a truck loaded with red bricks, describing him as emaciated, with a clear collarbone and a faint scar on his right shoulder. When photographed, his face was pale and yellow, his face was full of stubble, and his brows were furrowed. Behind him is a simple factory shed and a rectangular brick-transporting belt in iron gray.
"The police station said that when they were checking the floating population, they accidentally found a few people, and through the comparison of face images and big data of the public security system, they found that one of them was likely to be Wei Dali from our village, so they contacted us to identify and lead people." Wei Mingli recalled.
From the information provided by the police, Wei Mingli basically confirmed that this person was Wei Dali, a villager in his village. But when Wei Dali left home twenty years ago, Wei Mingli was only a teenager and had a vague impression. Wei Mingli sent the photos to his father and Wei Dali's sister and brother respectively, and they all received a definite reply.
On May 9, Wei Dali's brother followed the village cadres and others to the Shuzhuang Police Station to claim Wei Dali: "I recognized it at a glance as my brother, although after 20 years, the person's facial features and general appearance will not change." Wei Mingli's father observed that Wei Dali still maintained the same habit as when he was a child, clenching his hands and rubbing his fists whenever he was uneasy and nervous.
It's just that Wei Dali in front of him has long lost the brilliance of twenty years ago. "My whole body is dirty, my body is dirty, my clothes are dirty, even my hair is dirty, I smell rancid, I am thin and stupid." Wei Dali's brother recalled to a reporter from Southern Weekly.
Twenty years ago, Wei Dali, who was in his twenties, left home to work in the Northeast with the dream of making a fortune, and borrowed a few hundred yuan from his aunt and the old village director before leaving, and has not been heard from since. In the memory of the eldest sister and elder brother, as the eldest in the family, Wei Dali grew up under the pampering of his family since he was a child, although he only had a junior high school education, he had a sunny and smart personality, and he was very talkative.
Seeing each other again now, to everyone's surprise, Wei vigorously resisted going home. Many people who participated in the claim on May 9 said that Wei Dali repeatedly denied his identity, refused to recognize relatives and friends, and repeatedly urged villagers to leave. When Wei Dali's brother proposed to do DNA testing, Wei Dali also emphasized many times that the identification would also be fake. "I didn't get it back that day, and the people at the police station said that he (Wei Dali) couldn't take it away if he didn't recognize it." Wei Mingli said.
The next day, they called Wei Dali's sister to pick up again. "When I saw him (Wei Dali) he didn't recognize it, so I told him about my mother and father who had died one after another in the past 20 years, my father fell ill in order to find him, and I didn't know if he was dead or alive when he left, I cried as I spoke, and he also had red eyes."
The people at the scene of the claim saw Wei Dali, who was in tears, and was sure that it was him. Wei Mingli's father felt that the time was ripe, so he suggested that Wei Dali could not go home, but he must go to his parents' graves to pay respects. Wei Dali replied, "I will go to the grave when I get paid at the end of the year." Until this moment, Wei Dali finally stopped denying his identity.
In May 2024, in the former Weiyao Village of Jieshou City, Wei Dali returned to his hometown after a 20-year absence. Photo by Southern Weekly reporter Wu Xiaofei
scar
Wei Dali's sister introduced that many people thought that his younger brother had died during the years he had been away from home, but his parents never wanted to believe it. My mother would cry every time she mentioned her brother, and she died of a heart attack more than ten years ago. It has been two years since his father's death, and he went to the police station many times before his death to inquire about any news of his younger brother; For many years, his father was not only reluctant to close his brother's account, but also paid his pension.
Friends and relatives have thought about many possibilities. The old village cadres also thought that Wei Dali might have committed something outside, so he didn't dare to go home, but "the public security didn't find any information about the crime."
On May 10, 2024, under the persuasion of everyone, Wei Dali returned to his hometown after a 20-year absence. His sister remembers that when she came home for dinner the first night, her brother was in a hurry to eat meat as if he hadn't eaten meat for a long time. When the elder brother helped his younger brother to clean, he found that there were multiple dark brown marks on his back, like scars, and an obvious scar on his right shoulder, which was suspected to have been left by a sharp object. Wei Dali did not say where the injury came from.
The family also noticed that Wei Dali had previously seemed to be living a life of "isolation". He doesn't have an ID card, can't use a mobile phone, can't operate common small household appliances, and doesn't even have any concept of time and location. For most of the month when he went home, he didn't go out, didn't talk, and didn't want to see people.
Nearby villagers have also seen many times that Wei Dali often hits his chest and head with his hands, rubs the shoulder straps on the cart around his neck, and mutters something to himself. "When I asked him (Wei Dali), he said he was exercising." A villager said.
Two months later, at the end of July, Southern Weekend reporters met Wei Dali in the former Weiyao village. This 44-year-old middle-aged man, about 170 cm tall, has a moderate figure, has an inch head, a square face, and a few forehead lines are faintly visible on his forehead, looking a few years older than his peers. On that day, he was wearing an khaki polo shirt, black shorts, and black slippers, and his clothes were covered with stains; There was obvious varicose blood vessels in the lower leg, and the nail cover of the big toe of the right foot was black and purple, and it was suspected that the bruise and coagulation after being hit by a heavy object.
"For more than two months, his brother has made chicken, duck and fish meat for him every day, and he has grown more than 20 catties." Wei Mingli introduced that Wei Dali's brother went to work in other places a week ago, and Wei Dali is currently the only one in the family. These days, he has learned to use his mobile phone to make and receive calls, watch videos, and cook simple meals, and he can basically take care of himself at present.
Wei Dali did not respond to strangers' greetings, and rarely made eye contact with his neighbors, but kept lowering his head to swipe short videos on his mobile phone, scratching his neck and back from time to time. There are two main types of programs he watches frequently, singing and dancing in the women's group and chanting Buddhist scriptures. The video was so loud that people around them had to pull their throats to hear each other clearly.
Wei Dali's sister said that although she never expected her younger brother to return to her hometown, she still expected her younger brother to live safely and healthily somewhere, but she never thought that it would be like this now. She thinks it may have something to do with Zhang and his brother's experience working in a brickyard.
In July 2024, Jieshou Xinfa Building Materials Co., Ltd. Photo by Southern Weekly reporter Wu Xiaofei
Brick kiln yard
The brick yard of Wei Dali, the full name of Jieshou Xinfa Building Materials Co., Ltd. (referred to as Xinfa Building Materials), is located in Dachenzhuang, Shuzhuang Town, Jieshou City, only more than 20 kilometers away from Wei Dali's hometown Qianwei Yao Village. Wei Mingli learned from the police that Zhang took Wei Dali and others to work here for more than a year to move bricks and load trucks.
According to the national enterprise credit information publicity system, Jieshou Xinfa Building Materials Co., Ltd. was established in August 2017 and is a small and micro enterprise with a registered capital of 500,000 yuan. The legal representative of the company is Yan Bingbing, and the actual controller is Wang Jintian, who holds 70% of the shares, and its main business scope is the manufacture and sales of lightweight building materials. Southern Weekend reporters learned at the scene that the "building materials" produced and sold by the factory are mainly red bricks.
According to a number of interviewees, more than a year ago, Xinfa Building Materials outsourced the work of moving bricks and loading trucks to Zhang, who was responsible for the salary payment and daily management of these workers. Southern Weekend reporters repeatedly contacted the registration number of Xinfa Building Materials, but received no response.
Wei Dali told Southern Weekend that after leaving home 20 years ago, he went to work in the northeast, mainly at construction sites. Eight or nine years ago, he met Zhang in other places, and then followed Zhang to the brick kilns in Taihe County, Jieshou City, Anhui Province and other places to move bricks.
According to Wei Dali, Zhang's "team" consisted of eight or nine people, Zhang was their boss, and an elderly male was responsible for cooking for the workers and supervising the workers' work, and the rest were workers who did specific work.
For their acquaintance, Zhang's statement is not the same as Wei Dali's: "Two years ago, we had a guy named Datou, who met Wei Dali in a basement under the overpass near Xuzhou Railway Station, he asked Wei Ke if he was willing to work together, and he said that he would bring it if he was willing, and we knew each other for less than two years, and worked in Shuzhuang Kiln (Xinfa Building Materials). ”
It is worth mentioning that in the process of talking with the reporter of Southern Weekly, Wei Dali will say that the two met in Xuzhou around 2017, and in the Fuyang labor market in 2012.
At around 18:00 on July 20, 2024, in Shuzhuang Town, Jieshou City, the brickyard involved was noisy due to machine operations. Southern Weekend reporters walked around the entire factory area, which took about 15 minutes. A blue sheet of iron encloses an open field, and the ground is covered with materials such as earth and cinders used to burn bricks, partially exposed to the open air and not completely covered.
At the entrance of the factory, there is a striking simple iron greenhouse, the side of the greenhouse is close to the wall is covered with red bricks, several dark blue trucks are lined up waiting to be loaded, and several middle-aged men in their forties and fifties are busy moving bricks from the conveyor belt to the car, which is also the work that Wei Dali and others have done before.
In the midsummer of around 35°C, many workers are so hot that they are shirtless. Most of them are thin, with dark complexions, shorts that show off muscular calves, backs or slumped by perennial weights, and thick twine gloves on their hands.
Wei Dali repeated many times that he had been moving bricks here, working 12 hours a day, almost all year round, except for the Chinese New Year. Zhang once promised them that he could earn 100 yuan a day by moving bricks, but before the police arrived, he was never paid.
Wei Dali said that the reason why he followed Zhang to move bricks for many years and did not go home was because Zhang promised to pay his salary at the end of the year every time, but he kept delaying it. "If you go home without getting the money, you'll be doing it for nothing."
Zhang did not deny that he was not paid, but argued: "Give them food, clothes to wear, and cigarettes to smoke, don't you need money?" Zhang said that after Wei Dali and others were discovered by the police, he was taken coercive measures. The people at the police station said that they would not let me out if they didn't pay the money, and the family scraped together to borrow more than 200,000 yuan, but I don't know how to distribute it to the workers. ”
In July 2024, Shuzhuang Town, Jieshou City, the place where Wei Dali worked before. Photo by Southern Weekly reporter Wu Xiaofei
"The Man with Long Arms"
Wei Dali recalled his living conditions in the brickyard: "I usually eat steamed buns, porridge and side dishes, and occasionally I can eat some fried vegetables with oil residues. The cigarettes smoked are mainly three or five yuan a pack of cigarettes, one pack every two days, and some medicine to eat when you are sick, and also to rest. ”
The workers' "dormitory" is located next to a pond, across the road from the workshop. Southern Weekend reporters noticed that the "dormitory" is made of red bricks, about two meters high, and the ironwood panels are tightly locked, and through the cracks in the door, you can see that the whole room is less than 10 square meters, and there is a window of less than 1 square meter on the back wall.
The "dormitory" is darkly lit, a wooden board is placed on four low brick stacks to be the bed, and the table where the living items are stored is also made of bricks and wood, these two "furniture" occupy most of the room, clothes, dining utensils, etc. are randomly stacked at the foot of the bedside table, and black dirt is everywhere in the room.
Wei Dali said that he and five or six workers lived here, and when he slept, the old man who supervised the workers would lock the door from the outside, and the urine was in the bucket in the house, and the feces could only knock on the door. Someone had tried to escape before, but was caught and beaten by the old man with a thin twig.
Zhang denied that there were "thugs" in his team, and said that he never scolded the workers, because the workers did not want to go home and just wanted to follow the work, and Zhang also took the workers back to his home for the holiday in the Chinese New Year's Eve.
Recalling Zhang's residence, Wei Dali could only provide fragmentary information such as "Taihe County", "Xianghe Road", "School" and "808". Under the prompting of these information, the Southern Weekend reporter accompanied Wei Dali to investigate along the streets of Taihe County, and finally found a residential house with the house number 808 in a mid-range community.
In addition to the elderly overseers, Wei Dali repeatedly mentioned to many people that there were "people with long arms" in the places where they worked, and said that these people would threaten and even beat the workers. After returning home, Wei Dali said many times that the "man with long arms" was very powerful and was likely to seek revenge on him and his family.
After Wei Dali's group of workers were rescued by the police, a group of new people were quickly added to the brickyard. Li Gong came to work in this brickyard after the incident. Li Gong recalled that he had heard many times from the old workers in the brickyard that not long ago, the police had come here to arrest a contractor and take away several workers. "The workers who worked were mentally disabled, and the foreman was black-hearted, and the boss gave him the money, but he didn't give the money to the workers."
According to a number of villagers who claimed Wei Dali, the operation of the Jieshou police involved a total of five or six workers, who were similar to Wei Dali, dressed in rags and looking sluggish. At the Shuzhuang police station, "those people were like schoolchildren who had made mistakes, with their hands on their knees, their heads down, and they would come over if they were allowed to come, and they would squat if they were squatting." A villager said.
The person in charge of Shuzhuang Town told Southern Weekend on July 31, 2024 that as far as he knows, only Wei Dali was the only worker who was "rescued"; Then he said that he did not know the specific situation and needed to know more.
Zhang admitted that after the incident, he was detained by the Jieshou police and ordered to terminate the employment on the grounds that "these people are faulty people, that is, people with a little brain problem, and they are not allowed to continue." When asked how he found these workers, Zhang said that these people were all idle at home and "found them by themselves".
This is not the first time that similar employment problems have occurred in the region. According to media reports, as early as May 2009, the police rescued 32 workers with intellectual disabilities in the kilns of Brick Town and Guangwu Town, and arrested 10 suspects, including the contractor, the kiln owner, and the supervisor. Subsequently, Jieshou City strengthened the supervision of the labor market in rural and remote areas and key industries to regulate the employment of enterprises.
In July 2024, Shuzhuang Town, Jieshou City, the "dormitory" where brickyard workers live. Photo by Southern Weekly reporter Wu Xiaofei
Responsibility and aftermath
According to various introductions, after the Jieshou police terminated the labor relationship between Zhang and the workers, according to the contract agreement signed between Zhang and the brickyard, they recovered the labor income for the workers according to the working hours that actually occurred in the jurisdiction of the Jieshou for more than one year.
Under the coordination of village cadres and the police, Wei Dali received 45,000 yuan. In addition, Wei Dali's relatives also signed a "settlement agreement", the general content of which was that after accepting the money, they would no longer ask Zhang for labor compensation.
"My brother was very scared of the contractor and wouldn't let me ask him for money again. He (Wei Dali) said that he had worked with the contractor for seven or eight years, and he must have more than that. Wei Dali's brother said.
The Labor Law stipulates that wages shall be paid to the worker in monetary form on a monthly basis. Wages shall not be deducted or unjustifiably delayed. Yang Dewei, a senior partner at Beijing Jing'an Law Firm, analyzed that in this case, Zhang and Wei Dali and other workers constituted an actual labor relationship, and the labor law was applicable. After the police intervened, the workers' labor income was repaid, "This does not replace the fact that the contractor Zhang, who has been in arrears of wages for many years, and the arrears of wages alone have clearly violated the relevant provisions of the labor law." ”
In addition to the arrears of workers' wages, Yang added that there are a number of suspected violations in this case: 12-hour working hours a day, almost all year round, an average salary of less than 10 yuan per hour (in 2023, the minimum wage standard in Jieshou City is 16 yuan per hour), and relatively poor working and rest places.
If Zhang, as the contractor, has violated the law, is Xinfa Building Materials, as the employer, liable?
Li Gong mentioned that according to the old workers of Xinfa Building Materials, they did not notice the abnormality of Wei Dali and other workers, but "the work in the kiln is more hard and tiring, and no one is willing to do it, and it is even more difficult to recruit people in the hot weather, even if they feel that something is wrong, they will turn a blind eye."
It is difficult to define this, and Xinfa Building Materials has provided assistance to the above-mentioned illegal employment. "Identifying whether a worker is mentally sound is more professional and subjective, and it is difficult to verify." Yang Dewei said.
Dong Baohua, vice president of the China Society of Social Law and executive director of the China Labor Society, reminded that in the case of wage arrears, if the contractor is in arrears in a subcontracted labor project, the employer will also be jointly and severally liable.
It is worth noting that Yang Dewei pointed out that if it involves the employment of mentally abnormal people, it may also involve forced labor. "In addition to violent beatings, verbal abuse, threats, intimidation, etc., can also form a certain degree of 'mind control' on people with mental abnormalities or people with low intelligence, thus forming forced labor, which will involve criminal violations."
According to Article 96 of the Labor Law, if an employer forces labor by means of violence, threats or unlawful restriction of personal freedom, or insults, corporal punishment, beatings, illegal search or detention of a worker, the public security organ shall detain the responsible person for up to 15 days, impose a fine or a warning; where a crime is constituted, criminal responsibility is to be pursued for the responsible persons in accordance with law.
On July 31, 2024, the relevant person in charge of Tianying Town told a reporter from Southern Weekend that in response to Wei Dali's situation, the grassroots government had previously considered applying for temporary assistance for him, but he did not meet the relevant conditions, and had now helped Wei Dali find a job in the chicken essence factory to help him adapt to society, and then would also consider applying for a subsistence allowance for him.
After Wei Dali returned home, he disappeared for a few days, which worried his older siblings. In addition to taking better care of her younger brother, Wei Dali's sister also wants more social support, such as mental health correction for her younger brother. "My brother is only in his early forties, and he is still young, so it would be better if he could get married and have children like normal people in the future."
(Wei Dali, Wei Mingli, and Li Gong are pseudonyms, and Southern Weekly Wang Tao, Fu Yuejia, and intern Jin Jing also contributed to this article.)
Southern Weekly reporter Wu Xiaofei
Editor-in-charge: Tan Chang