Child labour

The life and death of a child worker in China

To mark the International Labour Organization’s World Day against Child Labour on 12 June this year, CLB has translated the tragic story reported in the Southern Daily "Child worker in Dongguan started working age 12 dies suddenly after sending home 500 yuan." Photograph of factory recruiters in Dongguan by CLB.

The Guardian: Baby 59 case highlights shortcomings of child protection system in China

Many Chinese children are pampered, but the baby rescued from a pipe and a spate of stories of abuse have raised concerns

Los Angeles Times: Chinese factory giant employed underage interns on assembly line

A Chinese vocational school sends five 15-year-old boys to assemble Sony PlayStations at a Foxconn manufacturing plant. The legal age to do such work is 16.

Radio Australia: Foxconn admits underage interns used in China factories

Electronics giant Foxconn has admitted to using technical school students as young as 14 as workers in one of its factories in China.

Chinese government pledge to double wages gets reality check

As a senior government official announced plans on 18 April to increase wages by around 15 percent annually, and double wages by 2015, a 20-minute clip was posted on the Chinese video sharing site Youku showing the harsh reality for teenage workers in a Dongguan factory.

The Guardian: Apple report reveals child labour increase

Apple found more than 91 children working at its suppliers last year, nine times as many as the previous year, according to its annual report on its manufacturers. The US company has also acknowledged for the first time that 137 workers were poisoned at a Chinese firm making its products and said less than a third of the facilities it audited were complying with its code on working hours.

Village school children killed in explosion at illegal firecracker workshop

An explosion at an illegal firecracker workshop in Guangxi has left 13 village school children dead and injured. All the victims were “left-behind children” whose parents were working in factories hundreds of kilometers away in neighbouring Guangdong.

SCMP: Education rights should be a priority

China Labour Bulletin appears in the following article. Copyright remains with the original publisher.Liz Heron Updated on Jun 12, 2009

Child labour remains a widespread and serious problem in China

Ten years after the adoption of the International Labour Organization’s Convention on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour on 12 May 1999, there is little evidence that the Chinese government, which ratified the convention in 2002, is making a determined effort to tackle the problem.

The Children of Migrant Workers in China

Table of Contents Part one: Those left behind Part two: Under the same blue sky? Rural migrant children in urban China Exclusion from the healthcare system

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