Boy's death focuses attention on child labor

Chen Zhaocai, Zong's relative, who is handling the case on behalf of the boy's family, said he believed overwork and a toxic workplace environment caused the boy's death.

"I became more certain of this after the factory refused to allow the boy's father to go to see his workplace," said the 75-year-old.

Currently, Zong's corpse is being held at the funeral home, as compensation negotiations between his family and the company have come to a deadlock.

After two rounds of negotiations, Dongguan Jinchuan Electronics agreed to pay 100,000 yuan ($16,300) as "comfort money for the bereaved family", aside from the compensation that will be decided on by the arbitration authorities.

Chen said Liufu's family will not accept compensation less than 1.2 million yuan.

A thorny issue

The Asia Pacific region has the largest number of child laborers in the world — 113 million out of the global total of 215 million, according to the 2010 Global Report on Child Labor released by the International Labour Organization.

While official data from China is not available, analysis of data from other countries in the region indicates child labor is most prevalent in agriculture, followed by services and manufacturing, according to Simrin Singh, senior specialist on Child Labor from the Decent Work Team for East and South-East Asia and the Pacific under the ILO.

Dongguan labor authorities introduced regulations to crack down on child labor in 2008 after an investigative report by Southern Metropolis Daily exposed abusive child labor rings.

The report said thousands of children from poor villages in Sichuan province were trafficked to Dongguan, a transit point, where factories throughout the province selected them.

Li Shulong, a veteran journalist from Dongguan, said the number of underage workers has decreased as factories face fines of 5,000 yuan per month for every child caught working, in addition to which they face the loss of their business license. Deng, the township labor official, said his daily inspections of factories include the illegal use of child labor but only two or three companies had been found guilty of doing so in the past three years.

He admitted, however, that factories using underage workers, have become more covert.

"It is hard for us to supervise if these child workers use other people's IDs and the workers themselves — who only care about making money — do not cooperate with our inspectors when we suggest they look too young," Deng said.

Xue Hong, an associate professor on labor rights from East China Normal University, said the abuse of interns is another worrying phenomenon.

"For money, some vocational schools force their students to work in factories as interns in the summer or winter holidays as a precondition for academic credits," she said.

"In China, using interns without signing a contract is legal, which means employers can fire interns whenever they want.

"Meanwhile, the working hours and work pressure for student workers is the same as ordinary employees, which is not fair."

Measures required

ILO has been working with the Chinese government to provide direct services to vulnerable children through integrating a life-skills education curriculum in schools, equipping students with the basic skills necessary to migrate safely, avoid risks, and find a decent job.

More than 2,700 teachers have been trained to teach this life-skills curriculum, which more than 77,000 at-risk students have received, Singh said.

Sound labor policies, legal protection for young workers and strong enforcement, plus a quality educational system up to the minimum age of employment would help prevent child labor, Singh commented in an e-mail.

Jiang Mengyun contributed to this story.