Pictured: Former dancer Zhang Junge of Shen Yun Arts Troupe. She filed a lawsuit against the group, accusing them of exploiting underage dancers. The New York Times

On Monday, former dancers from the Shen Yun Arts Troupe, a prominent music and dance group of the Falun Gong religious movement, filed a lawsuit accusing Shen Yun and its leaders of abducting vulnerable children into low-pay or even unpaid work.

The 68-page lawsuit, filed by Chang in the U.S. District Court for White Plains, N.Y., describes Shen Yun as a "forced labor enterprise" that earns hundreds of millions of dollars by threatening and publicly humiliating underage dancers.

The lawsuit alleges that Shen Yun used a variety of tactics to instill a sense of obedience in dancers, including confiscating passports, banning access to outside media, accusing dancers of being spies for the Chinese government and subjecting violators to public criticism if they questioned the group's practices.

Zhang said she was recruited from Taiwan to join Shen Yun as a dancer in 2009 at the age of 13. She performed with the troupe until she left in 2020, when she was 24 years old.

Chang's lawsuit was based on a federal law that enables victims of forced labor to sue their traffickers.

The lawsuit comes after The New York Times revealed that Shen Yun's performers had been working in abusive conditions for three months. Mr. Zhang, 28, was one of the former performers and dance teachers interviewed for the article.

The New York Times reported last week that the New York State Department of Labor had launched an investigation into the group's labor practices, including the hiring of child performers.

The amount of damages sought in the lawsuit is unknown.

Chang is the only known plaintiff, but she asked a federal judge to approve the lawsuit as a class action lawsuit to represent more Shen Yun performers. Her attorney is looking for other plaintiffs to join the lawsuit.

In its last five-month tour, Shen Yun has performed more than 800 shows on five continents. The group performed a two-hour dance and music program designed to spread the message of Falun Gong. Falun Gong is a spiritual practice that is banned in China, and its followers have been persecuted by the Chinese government.

Representatives of Shen Yun and Falun Gong did not respond to requests for comment. Both groups have previously denied any wrongdoing, saying that labor laws do not apply to their underage performers, who are students touring with Shen Yun in the name of learning opportunities, not employees. They stated that every student volunteered to participate in Shen Yun.

"Of course, some people leave because they don't fit, and that's perfectly fine." In a recent statement, Shen Yun's representative said, "But the vast majority of students will tell you that this is making their dreams come true, and parents will be raving about the positive changes in their children." ”

Mr. Zhang's lawyer, Washington-based Tyshi Wang, said in a statement that the persecution of Falun Gong "cannot justify forced child labor for Shen Yun defendants."

In the same statement, Ms. Zhang said she filed the lawsuit to "make sure that no other child experiences what I went through."

Hundreds of performers tour with Shen Yun each year, including a large number of young dancers and musicians. To train in acting, children travel from all over the world to attend school at Shen Yun's headquarters in Cowbarkville, New York, northwest of New York City.

Like most Shen Yun performers, Zhang Junge has been a Falun Gong follower since childhood. After her father's death, she joined Shen Yun. She was told that it was a sacred honor to dance for Shen Yun because Shen Yun was personally in charge of Falun Gong founder and spiritual leader Li Hongzhi.

Li Hongzhi and his wife, Li Rui, are both named as defendants in this lawsuit.

Many of the children who come to Shen Yun's headquarters, Longquan Temple, speak little English and have no relatives in the United States. Separated from their families, they were caught in "a system of coercion and control that extends to almost every aspect of the dancer's life," the lawsuit alleges.

Pictured: Shen Yun's young cast members live and train in a heavily guarded, 400-acre campus northwest of New York City. The New York Times

According to the lawsuit, they were not allowed to leave without permission and were often held in the park by armed guards. They are forbidden to read unsanctioned news outlets and are not allowed to contact people who have quit Falun Gong.

The lawsuit alleges that Zhang was scolded by Shen Yun leaders for the contents of his private diary. She said she was allowed to call her mother once a week, but was told that her phone was being monitored, and Shen Yun told her that she hoped the dancers would see Mr. and Mrs. Li as their new parents.

Although Shen Yun is registered as a nonprofit organization, the lawsuit alleges that its core motive was to generate income, including personal financial benefits for the Li Hongzhi couple, although the lawsuit provided no evidence and only claimed that they had a bodyguard.

Zhang also sued Chicago International Bank, accusing the community bank of profiting from human trafficking because it ignored "red flags" about exploitation, including their meagre income, when opening accounts for Shen Yun's child actors.

A representative for the bank did not respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit alleges that the bank's founder was a Falun Gong practitioner who had close personal ties with Li Hongzhi. The bank's only branch outside of Illinois is located in Port Jervis, New York, about a 15-minute drive from Shen Yun's headquarters.

For more than a decade, according to the lawsuit, representatives of the bank have been able to enter the heavily guarded Longquan Temple compound to open accounts for new recruits.

These new students usually attend the Feitian Art Academy, a boarding school located in Longquan Temple, and then enter Feitian University in the same park. But the lawsuit alleges that the schools provide little instruction so that dancers can devote most of their time to preparing for performances, ensuring that "Shen Yun can continue to have child labor under forced labor without attracting attention."

"These fake schools are a front for a forced labor program," the lawsuit alleges. ”

During the months-long tour, the students were left without teachers. Mr. Zhang was given a tablet and "told he could learn English by watching the sitcom 'Leave It to Beaver,' the lawsuit alleges."

Mr. Zhang said that the food given to the actors sometimes included expired beef jerky and ramen. At one point, the lawsuit alleges, she was told after she became ill from eating the food that Ms. Li had given her expired food to "purify herself from the inside out."

The lawsuit alleges that although students at the Flying Arts School were not required to pay for tuition, room and board, Shen Yun performers were told that they would have to repay the scholarships in equal value once they quit the group.

Shen Yun also tried to discourage students from quitting by discrediting those who spoke out against the group.

After the New York Times published Mr. Zhang's remarks, Feitian University professor Gong Shujia spread "false and defamatory" claims on his YouTube channel, saying that Ms. Zhang and her husband were agents of the Chinese government, which had invested in their dance studio in Taiwan, after Mr. Chang's remarks were published in The New York Times.

Gong Shujia, who goes by the pseudonym Zhang Tianliang, is also one of the defendants in the lawsuit and did not respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit alleges that while Shen Yun has been a victim of ongoing persecution by the CCP, the group has also adopted some of the same persecution practices as the CCP.

Performers who violated the rules (such as reading comic books) were sometimes reprimanded on stage by Shen Yun leaders and forced to apologize at a "big critique."

The lawsuit alleges that Zhang was diagnosed with clinical depression and post-traumatic stress disorder after leaving Shen Yun. Recently, the lawsuit alleges, Zhang learned that Shen Yun had organized a large critique meeting against her.

Li Rui, the wife of Shen Yun leader Li Hongzhi, claims that Shen Yun commissioned someone to spy on Zhang in Taiwan, who "has withdrawn its charges against Shen Yun and regrets making them — and as the lawsuit shows, the allegations couldn't be further from the truth."