Fresh from their return from the nine-day foreign trip with U.S. President Donald Trump, the billionaire’s daughter and her husband are hot news again. It was the first lady, Melania Trump, who captured a lot of media mileage while overseas after she swatted and rejected her husband’s hand in public two days in a row.
But before the first family of America could return, Jared Kushner was the headline after the FBI said it is investigating the president’s son-in-law. The intelligence agency is looking mainly in his role as the contact person of the Trump campaign group and officials of Russia which is being accused of meddling in the U.S presidential election in 2016.
The shoe is on the other foot
On Tuesday, Reuters reported the arrest of Hua Haifeng, a Chinese man investigating the alleged poor working conditions in a Ganzhou factory that manufactures shoes for the Ivanka Trump brand. Besides the arrest by Chinese authorities of Hua, who works for the China Labor Watch, two other men from the Watch are missing. They are Li Zhao and Su Heng, according to Li Qiang, the director of China Labor Watch.
Deng Guilian, the wife of Hua, received on Tuesday afternoon a call from the police. She was informed that Hua was accused of illegal surveillance. The caller did not give her additional details but told Deng she would not see, talk with, or receive money from her husband, the main provider of their family.
Li said he lost contact with the three investigators over the weekend. He made dozens of calls to the three in the days that followed, however, by Tuesday, Li concluded the men were either detained in the factory or arrested by authorities.
Alleged factory abuses
Li deployed the three investigators to confirm allegations of low salary, too much overtime, and student interns being misused in the Ganzhou factory that produces Ivanka Trump-branded shoes.
The New York-based nonprofit organization he headed was planning to release a report in June of the alleged abuses in the plant. But the New York Daily News wrote it is not clear if the undercover investigation made by China Labor Watch is legal in China.
Following the arrest of Hua and disappearance of Li Zhao and Su Heng, the advocacy group appealed to President Trump, Ivanka, and the brand company that manufactures her shoes to release the three activists. Ivanka’s brand did not comment, while the White House and her lawyer did not reply to Reuters’ request for a comment. Police in Jiangxi Province and Ganzhou City did not answer phone calls.
