(Rewrites with detention of officials) BEIJING, June 21 (Reuters) - Two Chinese labour inspectors were detained by police on Thursday for handing over a minor to one of the brickworks at the heart of an enslavement scandal, the official Xinhau news agency reported. The officials from Yongji city in Shanxi were detained for dereliction of duty and abuse of office, Xinhua said. The pair, Hou Junyuan and Shang Guangze, worked as inspectors for the local labour and social security bureau and their detention "was related to a Henan migrant worker minor who, while being sent home by the labour department, was again illegally introduced to another brick maker," Xinhua said. The brief report did not explain whether the two were paid for handing over the minor, whose age was not given. The detentions reflected growing acknowledgement that official indifference was crucial to the trade in enslaved workers. News of hundreds of poor farmers, teenagers and some children lured or forced to work in brickworks, mines and foundries in Shanxi and Henan provinces has emerged in the past few weeks, outraging citizens and the media. Beijing has vowed to punish officials complicit in the grim trade. Authorities in Hongtong county, where one of the first cases of forced labour was exposed, are investigating 20 government and Communist Party officials, the Beijing News said, citing local media. Wang Bingbing, owner of a kiln in Hongtong where one worker died and 31 people were rescued by police, was visited by the mine management bureau and the environment watchdog while still holding the workers, the paper quoted an investigator as saying. "They knew of the situation long ago," the official said, talking of the slavery-like conditions at the kiln. By Tuesday, police in Shanxi and Henan had detained more than 130 people suspected of involvement in the human trafficking and had freed more than 500 workers.
