Two Hong Kong social scientists claim a Human Rights Watch report had a political agenda in accusing Chinese-owned mining of having the worst safety records in Zambia.
The independent global organisation labelled the Chinese mines 'bad employers' in terms of meagre pay, marathon working hours, poor safety records and lack of union rights. The China Non-Ferrous Metal Mining Co was singled out for particular criticism.
However, Barry Sautman, a professor from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Yan Hairong, an anthropologist from Polytechnic University, found that multinational mining firms placed workers in just as deplorable conditions. They say in a counter-report that the claims by Human Rights Watch, which were widely reported in November, served to fuel the racist Western stereotype of Chinese people as abusive employers.
They wrote: 'There should be improvements across the board for mine workers in Zambia, who still receive a subsistence wage and live in underserviced communities, a possibility made less, rather than more likely when Chinese firms are singled out and erroneously accused of being the worst.'
They argue that there were multinational firms that should have been assessed, such as the British and Indian-owned Konkola Copper Mine and the Swiss and Canadian-owned Mopani Copper Mine, which is partly controlled by commodities giant Glencore, itself having had a long history of controversy over the safety and environmental impact of its mining operations.
The two academics will be presenting their paper at a seminar detailing the methodological errors of the Human Rights Watch report on March 9 at HKUST. The Hong Kong office of the New York-based rights group has been invited to the debate but has yet to decide whether to attend.
