China Digital Times

China news tagged with: child labor (18)

• Child Labor Alleged at Factory

  

  An investigation by RFA found that underage Uighur workers are being employed by the Taiwanese-owned Longfa Shoe Factory, which supplies shoes for Nike:

  While the legal working age in China is 16, Nike’s code of conduct states that its contractors do not “employ any person below the age of 18 to produce footwear.”

  Spokesmen for Nike and for Longfa Shoe Factory denied the allegation and said hiring underage workers would violate company policies.

  But some workers at the factory say they were sent to work at age 15 or 16. They were supplied with fake identification papers showing earlier birthdates, they said.

  Sawut and Abide, Uyghurs originally from China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), said that most of the girls were brought to Longfa at age 16 or 17 in three separate groups during March, April, and September of 2008.

  » Read more
  • May 12, 2009 8:23 PM

• Photos: Newspaper Peddlers on the Streets of Changsha

  

  Below are photos of school-aged children peddling newspapers on the streets of Changsha, capital city of Hunan Province. The photos were taken from rednet.cn, which also supplied the captions and commentary, translated by CDT.

  
  Before buying a paper, a kind-hearted auntie asks about the papergirl’s situation.

  
  The papergirl rushes up as soon as she sees the man show an interest in buying.

  
  Just ahead of an old street performer, a young boy peddles newspapers.

  
  The papergirl protests the paperboy’s invasion of her “business territory.”

  
  The “invading paperboy” dodges her left and right, smiling the whole while.

  
  The “business territory invasion incident” finally ends with the paperboy getting knocked over by the papergirl.

  Before the 2009 Spring Festival, passersby at a Changsha plaza could see a number of school-aged kids peddling newspapers in the cold, amidst crowds of people. Some of the passersby showed disdain for the children, complaining that they obstructed traffic. Others took pity on the kids and said that they deserved sympathy and an outstretched hand. Still others wanted to look more deeply into the matter before deciding whether or not to help.

  According to this reporter, these kids may look unkempt, but they haven’t lost a bit of their innocence. Just as they can be competitors amongst each other, they can also be one another’s playmates!

  Hecaitou, one of China’s most prominent bloggers, posted these pictures on his blog. The pictures and commentary elicited a number of reactions from his readers, selectively translated by CDT:

  东东 Says:

  这是真的吗？
  Is this real?

  Allan An Says:

  感动
  moving

  111 Says:

  祖国繁荣昌盛，人民幸福安康，哦也～
  O glorious motherland! How our people are blessed and in good health!

  themoss Says:

  天哪，她好小
  God, she’s so young …

  kapa Says:

  如果他们手中的是《环球屎爆》…..
  If they’re holding a 《Global Shit Explosion》 [this is a pun on the name "Global Times," whose Chinese name 环球时报 huan2qiu2shi2bao4 sounds like 环球屎爆 huan2qiu2shi3bao4] …..

  lilii Says:

  童工，小孩子真可怜，有钱人的小孩在家被呵护着，他们却这么小就要招人白眼，唉
  Child labor. I really pity these kids. While well-off kids are being nurtured at home, these kids invite the evil glares of others.

  mute Says:

  挺和谐的，祖国的花朵~~
  Ah, quite harmonious, flowers of the homeland~~

  闲看云起 Says:

  无语
  No words.

  gravity0 Says:

  鉴定为真，但可能不是卖报。在地铁里有免费报纸发放，每天上班时间看地铁出口总有几个穿着很不讲究的中年妇女收乘客看完的报纸，有的还背着孩子。
  再过几年等她们怀里或背上的孩子长这么大了，大概每天也干同样的事。这叫做“贫困世袭化”（顺口溜中“四化”之一）
  This needs verification. Maybe they’re not selling papers. In the subway stations, there are free newspaper giveouts, and everyday during work hours, I always see middle-aged women in shabby clothes collecting papers that passengers have finished reading. Some of these women are carrying children on their backs. After a few years, maybe those children grow to be about this age, and then they probably have to do the same thing as their moms everyday. This is “the process by which poverty is inherited” (sounds like one of the Four Modernizations).

  est Says:

  都几乎可以作为教科书图片描写万恶的、赤裸裸的旧社会了。
  These are all pretty much textbook examples of extreme evil, laying bare our old society.

  躺着读书 Says:

  @gravity0
  我的天哪。你还说是鉴定……你以为中国处处是上海啊。处处是北京啊。这么牛逼。
  长沙有地铁？？？？ 你以为是北京啊。
  看来现在的国人已经到了“何不食肉粥”的地步了。
  Oh my gosh. You’re saying you want proof …. you think everywhere in China is like Shanghai? That everywhere is like Beijing? How awesome.
  Changsha has subways???? And you thought it was like Beijing.
  Seems like Chinese people have already gotten to the level of “let them eat meat porridge” [similar to the saying "let them eat cake"].

  name_is_just_code Says:

  长沙是我老家
  在黄兴路（最繁华的步行街，看图片也像是那）确实有这些小孩子在卖报
  一般是潇湘晨报 五毛钱一份
  Changsha is my hometown.
  On Huangxing Road (the busiest road, the street in the photo is similar to it), there are indeed young kids selling papers.
  Typically, it’s Xiaoxiang Morning Post on sale for 5 mao a piece.

  zergling Says:

  不管怎么说，报道很温馨。
  还有那个小男孩的笑容，感谢记者记录了下来，在他还纯真的时候。
  However you see it, this report was heartwarming.
  That young boy is still smiling. Thanks to the reporter who recorded this boy’s pure innocence.

  nidadai Says:

  背后由人控制的，可悲。
  一个翻版的贫民窟百万富翁
  Behind, there’s someone controlling them. How pitiable.
  A slum millionaire in the background.

  减肥食谱 Says:

  这种情况一般还是存在的，估计幕后有父母暗箱操作的吧～～
  This kind of situation still exists. I reckon that the parents are orchestrating this behind-the-scenes.

  里八神 Says:

  你看看那个记者的口吻
  好像这是多欢欣鼓舞的事情一样
  偶擦
  Look at what the journalist is saying.
  He’s writing as if this is some great occasion for joy.

  picnic Says:

  这个记者的评论果然强大，“一起玩乐的小伙伴”。他（她）舍得让自己的孩子来跟报童们那样玩乐吗？
  This reporter’s commentary is really something, “be one another’s playmates.” Would he (she?) be willing to let his own kids play with the ones selling papers?

  » Read more
  • February 5, 2009 9:32 PM

• Child Labor Rings Reach China’s Distant Villages

  

  More details are emerging about the child labor case uncovered recently in rural Sichuan. From the New York Times:

  China is now investigating whether hundreds, perhaps thousands, of poor children of the Yi ethnic minority group in Liangshan were lured or even kidnapped to work in factories that are increasingly desperate for the kind of cheap labor that powered China to prosperity over the past two decades.

  Labor recruiters — government investigators and some local residents portray them as con men — have connected two radically different parts of China’s turbulent society. They have brought together ethnic minorities untouched by economic development in their mountainous isolation, and factory owners in the prime export manufacturing zones of southern Guangdong Province, near Hong Kong.

  Exporters have struggled to adjust to soaring inflation, a fast-rising currency and, with some irony, stricter enforcement of labor laws that make it harder to hire regular workers on a seasonal basis. Using child workers from a remote region, many of whom cannot even speak Mandarin, the country’s main national dialect, have provided a temporary, albeit illegal, solution.

  » Read more
  • May 9, 2008 9:39 PM

• Chinese Police Find Child Slaves

  

  From BBC News:

  Chinese police have rescued more than 100 village children sold to work as slave labourers in the booming southern province of Guangdong. The children, from the ethnic Yi minority, came from poor families in Sichuan about 600 miles ( 960 km) away. The China Daily said 167 children had been rescued from the factory in the industrial city of Dongguan so far, and several arrests had been made.

  China announced a nationwide crackdown on slavery and child labour last year.

  See also a CDT translation of a Southern Metropolis Daily investigation into this case.

  » Read more
  • April 30, 2008 11:00 AM

• From Job Placements to Child Labor Smuggling

  

  “Made in China” fame is built upon hundreds of millions of laborers from rural China. But there’s crime and tragedy involved too, according to an investigative report by Southern Metropolis Daily, translated by CDT.
  

  Lianshang is just one of thousands of impoverished communities in inland China that has been feeding the country’s manufacturing dynamo with unskilled labor. The story goes like this: young migrant workers find jobs at a toy or shoe factory in, say, Dongguan, and the next year, after a trip back home during the Spring Festival, they bring back with them many more fellow villagers hungry for whatever work is available. These workers-turned middlemen make a hundred kuai for every new recruit. That money of course doesn’t last too long. This is what it was like in the late 90s.

  But the “business” model soon became less effective as the number of migrant workers increased and fewer people needed help finding a job. That’s when savvy headhunters began targeting teenagers, many of whom are still in school, or even younger.

  Ma Haibu was one of those children taken from his village in Niuniuba Township of Meigu County to Dongguan and other factory towns for cheap jobs, in most cases without parental consent. During his trip, over a dozen of his buddies were sold into child-labor for half-year stints.

  This reporter found that average Joes in Liangshan Prefecture, from farmers to civil servants to policemen to teachers, all knew about the child labor smuggling, which they call “bringing workers (带工).” The practice has mushroomed over the past four or five years. The smugglers make money on the number of laborers they bring to factory bosses in Guangdong, and theoretically wire a few hundred kuai to the children’s parents while pocketing the rest for themselves. In some cases the parents receive nothing.

  Ma Haibu’s parents were among the “unlucky” ones, not receiving a penny for half a year. His home is a typical rundown shack. Just a dozen square meters in size, a light bulb is the only appliance in the house. When Ma was smuggled last December, he didn’t have a penny and was in the fourth grade. A former smuggler complained that parents supposedly will get “paid” every month, but some of his comrades literally “sold” the kids to the factories, “ruining the market.” He also said that the poorer the village, the easier it is to trick the children.

  Some schools, fully aware of the threat posed by smugglers, lock the school gate in order to protect their students from strangers. In some schools there are upwards of 5-6 smuggling cases in many of the classes, from junior high down to the second-grade.

  With the increasing demonstration of wealth by an emerging class of “smugglers,” the spirit of Liangshan is starting to change. The nouveau rich smugglers are exerting their newfound power over the seniors of local clans who used to have authority regional affairs. And some say that as long as the foremen, or smugglers, pay the parents on time, it’s a good thing. It’s no wonder many respected villagers also jumped on the bandwagon.

  At a people’s congress meeting earlier this year, the issue was at the top of the agenda of county officials, who vowed to prevent school children from being stolen by smugglers.

  Same story by Southern Metro Daily (with flash interactivity). See also a Reuters report on the above story, “Chinese children sold “like cabbages” into slavery.“

  » Read more
  • April 28, 2008 4:40 PM

• Company Loses Olympic Product License Over Alleged Child Labor – AP

  

  AP follows up on the Olympics child labor allegations:

  A company alleged to have used child labor to produce licensed products for the 2008 Beijing Olympics has had its contract terminated, Beijing organizers said Tuesday.

  In addition, three other companies accused of labor-law violations in a report released in early June have had their contracts suspended. [Full text]

  » Read more
  • July 31, 2007 7:43 AM

• “How Can You Answer To Your Conscience?” – 400 Fathers of Brick Kiln Child Laborers

  

  The group of fathers whose children are missing in the brick kilns of Shanxi Province have written a second letter expressing frustration with the long and painful process they have been through searching for their children and decrying the government for their failure to help. Translated by a CDT reader:

  We are the fathers of the 400 unfortunate kids who were sold to brick kilns as hard laborers. On June 5th, when we had exhausted all the means to look for our sons, we wrote a joint letter asking for help, which was posted on Dahe website, titled “400 fathers crying out in blood, who can save our children?“. We were hoping that the Internet would pass the suffering of our children to the highest levels of the central government, and attract their attention.

  » Read more
  • June 29, 2007 7:11 AM

• Finally Rescued, China’s ‘Slaves’ Detail Their Plight

  

  The Wall Street Journal reporter Gordon Fairclough interviewed one of the victims of the Shanxi Brick Kiln forced labor case and published a detailed story on how Li Yaokai, one of the first abducted children to “give an extended interview to the foreign press”, got kidnapped at Zhengzhou Railway Station and was transported to Shanxi to work as a slave laborer at a brick kiln.

  At the kiln, Li subsisted on a diet of bread, noodles, and water. Although he did his best to avoid irritating the overseers, he got beaten twice when he was too exhausted and weak to work quickly, said the WSJ report.

  The brick kiln where Li toiled was set up by the Communist Party chief of the village and run by his son, the WSJ said, quoting Chinese authorities. The party chief has been sacked.

  From The Wall Street Journal:

  » Read more
  • June 19, 2007 10:12 AM

• “I Felt it Was a Fairly Small Thing” – CCTV Investigates the Shanxi Brick Kiln (Updated)

  

  ESWN has translated a lengthy investigation by CCTV into the Shanxi brick kiln case, in which the foreman of the kiln is interviewed and describes the beatings of workers “a fairly small thing.” ESWN has also included translations of articles on the case from Southern Metropolis Daily and Southern Weekend. From the CCTV transcript:

  Feng Yingui: In November last year, Zhao Yanbing beat a worker to death.

  Zhao Yanbing: There was this worker who was 57 or 58 years old. He did not do his work well. I only wanted to scare him a bit. But as soon as I raised the shovel, he rushed over to me. I raised the shovel and it hit him on the head. He fell down.

  Heng Mingyang: The next day, Wang Ximing called him to eat but he was already dead. [Full text]

  
  
  Danwei has also provided a round-up of reactions in Chinese cyberspace to the event. See also ESWN’s “Comments on the Shanxi Brick Kiln Case“.

  Update: See Howard French’s report in the International Herald Tribune discussing this case in the context of child labor in China:

  » Read more
  • June 18, 2007 9:18 AM

• 370 Rescued from Brick Kiln Slavery – Keralanext.com

  

  CDT partially translated the letter from 400 fathers, whose children have been kidnapped and illegally forced to work as slaves in some brick kilns in Shanxi. An update: a story from Keralanext.com reports that the number of forced laborers and child labor rescued and freed from brick kilns has reached 379.

  Rescue teams comprising a staggering 35,000 police officers in Henan Province have freed 217 people, including 29 children, from slavery in illegal brick kilns – but more are believed to be held captive, provincial police said on Thursday.

  The laborers were abducted by human traffickers and taken to the kilns, where they were beaten, starved and forced to work long hours without payment, according to the police.

  Up to 120 suspects have been detained. Until Tuesday, police checked 7,500 kilns, and the campaign continues. [Full Text]

  » Read more
  • June 15, 2007 11:48 AM

• Mass Rescue of ‘Slaves’ in China – BBC News

  

  From BBC News:

  More than 200 people, including 29 children, have been rescued after working as “slaves” in brick kilns in central China, state media reports.

  Tens of thousands of police moved in on the kilns in Henan province, arresting 120 people, Xinhua news agency said.

  They acted after media reports claimed that children were being forced to work in kilns in neighbouring Shanxi province, Xinhua said.

  » Read more
  • June 14, 2007 12:12 PM

• Ahead of Olympics, China Faces Charges of Child Labor – Kathleen E. McLaughlin

  

  The Christian Science Monitor reports on child labor in China, in the wake of allegations that factories used to make Olympics merchandise are employing 12 year olds:

  Some observers say that the latest reports represent a weak point in China’s otherwise strong record of enforcing child labor laws – especially at a time when child labor is on the decline worldwide.

  » Read more
  • June 12, 2007 9:51 PM

• Child Labor Caution for China Olympics – Andrew Taylor

  

  From Financial Times:

  
  Licensed goods being made for next year’s Beijing Olympic Games are being manufactured by child labour and “sweatshops” in China, the Playfair Alliance says in a report published on Monday.

  Research found children as young as 12 producing Olympic merchandise. Playfair says that adults producing goods for the Beijing games earn as little as 14p an hour, half the legal minimum wage in China.[Full Text]

  See related AP report

  » Read more
  • June 10, 2007 3:08 PM

• Slideshow: Child Labor

  

  According to the report, there are 800 million workers in China, around 1/4 of the world’s labor force. At the same time, China has to face the big problem: child labor.

  In China, child labor is the children, under 16, who take paid jobs for a company or a person. With the economic development of China, child labor is becoming more and more serious. Child laborers have not much protection, and not many rights.

  Chinese child labor exist in the following situations:
  1. Some state owned enterprises recruit child labor illegally, to do labor-intensive work or simple machine operation.
  2. Some private enterprises hire a lot of child labor to save costs for bigger profits.
  3. Some small businesses ask their own children to work for the family.
  4. A large number of surplus work force from countryside flow to cities, including children and teenagers, who work with their parents, or work alone at restaurants, construction sites, or as maids and babysitters, etc.
  5. Some people traffic children to cities from poor areas and force them to be child labor. Those children have to work more than 10 hours a day.

  
  [Click to see original photos from Wenxuecity]
  Chinese text source here.

  » Read more
  • February 3, 2007 3:57 PM

• Factory Fire Kills Child Workers, Followed by Reporting Ban – Xing Rongqin

  

  From Yulun Jiandu, translated by CDT:

  A fire enveloped a private-run socks factory at Datang Township of Zhuji City in Zhejiang Province on July 16, killing three women workers, two of whom are children, according to a survivor who successfully ran away from the disaster.

  The boss and his wife were the first to escape from the fire but were both burnt to different degrees. Reporters were told by an employee at the city work safety agency that he had yet to learn what happened as he just came to work.

  Police were much quicker at work, though. The venue was cordoned off and local propaganda authorities banned any reporting. The next day, under requests of relevant authorities, the socks factory paid up all the salaries of child labor and sent them off home. Other workers were put under house arrest at a guesthouse, guarded by police and cut off any contact with the outside. [Full Text in Chinese]

  » Read more
  • July 23, 2006 6:58 PM

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