Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Parents of teenagers at Alabuga Polytechnic in Tatarstan say their children are being exploited to work long hours building Shahed kamikaze drones in dangerous conditions. Some parents are rescuing their children from the facility, despite facing large fines for doing so. ⬇️

2/ As described in the thread below, Alabuga Polytechnic is a STEM college that has been repurposed as a military drone factory. As well as recruiting Russian children, it's reportedly catfished African girls via dating apps to perform menial work.

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1684283287898935297

3/ Hundreds of children aged 15-17 are reported to be assembling Shahed drones from parts provided by Iran. Ostensibly, they are undertaking a "dual programme" of study and work with a 70,000 ruble monthly salary ($719). In reality, their studies have reportedly been abandoned.

4/ Recent adverts published by Alabuga offer a 90,000 ruble salary to 16-21 year-olds for "mass assembly work". This is consistent with Alabuga's reported plans to greatly increase production of Shaheds and double the size of the facility.

5/ Parents of students at Alabuga describe the conditions as akin to "bondage" and say their children have begged to be rescued. Idel.Realii (part of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) has spoken to some of the parents.

6/ One parent, Zhanna, says that her son begged to be brought home only two and a half months after going to Alabuga. "Take me away or I'll die," he told her. She considers Alabuga's adverts to be just "attractive bait" and says that students there "fall into bondage".

7/ Other parents have been unable to afford to remove their children and have had to leave them to endure the conditions at Alabuga. Marina, one of the parents, says that children endure humiliation and do not inform their parents about it because they are from poor families.

8/ Zhanna says that she considers it to be "100 per cent [exploitation]. Two hundred, a thousand [per cent]. I have an acquaintance from Nizhny Novgorod who took her child in June – she also has no patience and strength, the child just can't do it anymore.

9/ "Two hundred thousand [rubles] were charged [for the cancellation of the training contract]. She is now suing, because it is a blatant violation of everything.

10/ "When she came to pick up her child, the [other] children looked at her with such eyes, because, apparently, they do not have the opportunity to pay such money to pick them up – and they can only endure. The children's psyche is so broken there, it's quite something."

11/ Children are supposed to only do eight hours' work a week, as stipulated in their contracts. In reality, they are doing far more. Another parent, Marina, says: "My child was silent for a very long time."

12/ "When I asked her in June why you kept silent for so long, she just didn't want to be weak, so to speak. In fact, it turned out that the children worked five days a week. My daughter came to work at 7:45 and I think they were released at 15:00."

13/ The children were put under psychological pressure, including being called at 22:00 for a "meeting". Non-attendance would result in collective punishment: "if you don't come, then everyone will sit all night and wait." Some had to work past midnight to meet production goals.

14/ The goals, and the salaries, are reportedly handled rather arbitrarily. A parent called Zhanna says the targets were only given two days before the end of the month "to avoid paying money".

15/ She recalls: "I saw that my child was online at two in the morning. I write to him, asking why he's online. He says he has goals to hand in. I ask him why he has to do it on the last night. He says, "We just got them the night before yesterday."

16/ "The kid doesn't make it, then he achieves 65% of his goals, they owe him some pennies, but since the last month they started randomly distributing bonuses - apparently, they've allocated their favourites, and my son has been on zero randomly for two months."

17/ The cost of dormitory accommodation is deducted from the children's salaries. Zhanna says that the contract initially specified a cost of 500 rubles ($5.14) per month for accommodation, but it was tripled in practice.

18/ "All this was deducted from the salary of 3,500 ($36). Only a few people are lucky there. Out of 600 people, maybe 100 will get somewhere, the rest are just [left out].

19/ "It's as if they recruit them, use them for their own purposes, and then create such conditions that the children drop out and pay penalties."

20/ The parents say that the children have been divided into different groups, each with their own roles. Composite assembly seems to be a particularly unpleasant task used as a punishment for those labelled as "delinquents."

21/ Marina says that her daughter was given the task "to glue composites for drones ... Well, in general, in a chemical production where underage children work in respirators for 15 hours a day."

22/ She says "the children are exhausted there. It is a dangerous production, they glue something with chemicals, which are also dangerous, not every adult will go to work there. They forbid children to tell their parents everything.

23/ "It's just such a taboo, I don't know how parents find out information, but if someone finds out and writes in the chat room, parents are just shocked."

24/ The parents say that the children are put under psychological pressure to get them to work on drone production, including depriving them of rest and accusing them of a lack of patriotism. They are also subjected to 'patriotic education'.

25/ Alabuga's general director Timur Shagivaleev was recorded speaking to them on 16 June 2023. In the speech, Shagivaleev says: "Alabuga has the best technology in the world. We are creating the most modern production facilities in the world.

26/ "And more than ever, the future fate of our country and our people depends on very few people: people like you, people like us. This is the moment when we can all contribute to the further development of our country and the development of our people.

27/ "This summer, it will be possible to help our country and Alabuga. The work is tough – as operators at a chemical composite manufacturing facility. Work in respirators, gloves, shifts of 12 hours, two days you work, two days you rest."

28/ He urges them to give up their holidays, "even if it's mum's birthday". At the end, he says: "Long live our great country!" The children respond with three shouts of "Hurrah!"

29/ Following earlier exposés, Alabuga has published videos of students taking about "how they voluntarily work 12 hours for the good of the Motherland." Its Telegram channel now advertises it as "Russia's largest centre for training specialists in the production of drones."

30/ A recent advertisement offers opportunities in "air navigation and UAV programming". It claims to provide "Autel Dragonfish [UAV] assembly training" but shows a student in front of a partly assembled Shahed drone, viewed from the rear. It does not mention Shaheds.

31/ Idel.Realii reports that the local prosecutor's office has found violations of labour law requirements, "expressed in the absence of "information about the working hours and rest regime of the employee" in the concluded employment contract" with one of the Alabuga students.

32/ It also reportedly found violations of sanitary and epidemiological legislation, education and licensing legislation, as well as violations of the rights of students, and has opened two cases against Alabuga in relation to these violations.

33/ It remains to be seen whether any action will be taken in practice. Given the importance of the Shahed programme to the Russian military, it's more likely that the drone production will be given a higher priority than the children's welfare. /end

Sources:
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🔹 https://t.co/eSmOx7gHhy
🔹 https://t.co/afs8W6SPtLidelreal.org/a/32540464.html
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