Laogai

The Laogai, short for "reform through labor," was a system of labor camps in China used from the 1950s to the 1980s. It imprisoned individuals, often political dissidents or those accused of crimes, who were forced to work under harsh conditions. The government aimed to re-educate or punish inmates through hard labor, and the system was comparable to Soviet gulags. While officially abolished in the 1980s, the term "Laogai" is still associated with concerns about forced labor and human rights abuses.