14-year olds discovered in Foxconn factory, Nintendo investigating

When most people think of cheap Chinese labour, they imagine 8-year old children sewing Nike insignia onto shoes and hoodies.

However, Chinese hardware manufacturer Foxconn has been in trouble in the past for employees committing suicide and reports of horrendous working conditions, and now they’re in the news again after a 14-year old child was discovered working in one of their factories. One of Foxconn’s big clients, Nintendo, have said they’re looking into the matter.

“We take our responsibilities as a global company very seriously and are committed to an ethical policy on sourcing, manufacture and labor,” the company said in a statement. “In order to ensure the continued fulfillment of our social responsibility throughout our supply chain, we established the Nintendo CSR Procurement Guidelines in July 2008. We require that all production partners, including Foxconn, comply with these Guidelines, which are based on relevant laws, international standards and guidelines. If we were to find that any of our production partners did not meet our guidelines, we would require them to modify their practices according to Nintendo’s policy.”

Foxconn admitted that it had indeed employed underage children (the legal age is 16), but claim it was part of a “school internship program”. The internship program was created due to a labour shortage at one of the factories, and 56 underage schoolchildren were reportedly brought on.

Foxconn has said it was an isolated case, and a violation of both Chinese labour law and Foxconn policy. However, with the company’s history of bad press, some may find the claimed ignorance a little difficult to believe.