BEIJING, June 21 (Xinhua) -- The government of Hongtong county, north China's Shanxi Province, has dispatched work teams to 12 provinces to compensate victims of the brickwork forced labor scandal.

    The 11 teams will call at the victims' homes with letters of apology, due salaries as well as compensation, according to the Hongtong government.

    Each of the 31 workers who were forced to work at the illegal kiln in Caosheng village will get 1,410 yuan for each month in thekiln, three times the Shanxi minimum salary of 470 yuan.

    A total of 32 rural laborers were lured from railway stations by a 42-year-old Heng Tinghan with promises to help them find jobs. One worker died in November 2006 while the others were rescued by police on May 27.

    The laborers were forced to work long hours on poor food. Dogs were used to prevent them from escaping. Many received burns and other injuries working in the hot kiln.

    On Wednesday, Shanxi Governor Yu Youjun made a self-criticism on behalf of the Shanxi government at a conference of the State Council, China's cabinet, chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao.

    The Shanxi government was ordered at the conference to step up investigations into the scandal and compensate the victims.

    The government is to launch a nationwide survey of labor conditions in small kilns and collieries, and those who illegally employ children, force people to work or deliberately injure workers would be severely punished, the State Council warned.

    The forced labor scandal hit the headlines after a "call for help" letter was posted on the Internet earlier this month by more than 400 parents in Henan who believed their missing children had been sold to the small brick kilns as slave workers.

    A total of 532 people have been freed after police raided brick kilns and collieries in coal-rich Shanxi and neighboring Henan provinces.

    The scandal shows how parts of the country have lagged behind the rapid economic development.

    "The fact that China has become the world's fourth largest economy is better known to the international community, while problems such as the yawning income gap, poverty and unemployment are less visible," said Xia Xueluan, a sociology professor at Beijing University, adding the case was far from exceptional.

    China has seen rapid economic growth since it launched its reform and opening-up policies in 1978, but the income gap between rural and urban areas has risen swiftly.

    The per capita net income of Chinese farmers was 3,587 yuan (471 U.S. dollars) last year, while the per capita disposable income of urban residents was 11,759 yuan, about 220 percent more than that of farmers.