After conducting an internal investigation, Foxconn (2038) issued a statement saying it discovered some of its interns at its Yantai facility in the Shandong Province were as young as 14-years-old, two years under China’s legal employment age. The company responsible for mass-producing some of the world’s most popular gadgets including the iPhone 5 told CNET in an emailed statement: “This is not only a violation of China’s labor law, it is also a violation of Foxconn policy and immediate steps have been taken to return the interns in question to their educational institutions.”
According to China Labor Watch, the underage interns were “mainly sent to Foxconn by schools, but Foxconn did not check the IDs of these young interns.” Foxconn says it will undergo another round of internal inspections and will terminate any intern found under 16-years-old.
Foxconn says its interns make up only about 2.7% of the 1.2 million workers its employs in China.
[Via CNET]
