cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/53574583

Internships are mandatory for the roughly 4 million children who graduate from secondary vocational schools each year. But some internships involve hazardous conditions – and even death.

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A 16-year-old vocational student arrived at a factory in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, for an internship. He worked 11-hour shifts – days and nights, weekdays and weekends – processing car parts. A 17-year-old began an internship at a technology company’s factory in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, logging more than 10 hours a day hauling heavy boxes. Another 17-year-old, assigned to an electronics manufacturing factory in Jiangxi Province, January 2022, worked 12-hour shifts.

Internships are mandatory for graduation from secondary vocational schools across China. But tragically these three young people did not finish their education. Despite expressing severe distress to factory managers and teachers, all three died during their internships, two by suicide, and one of serious illness that had progressed too far before receiving adequate medical care.

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These were not workplace accidents in any ordinary sense. For vocational school students, internships are supposed to help build career skills for the roughly 4 million children who graduate each year. But new research by the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) shows that some internships involve hazardous conditions for student interns: long hours, vulnerability to work injuries, inappropriate work assignments, inadequate protection mechanisms, all in violation of domestic and international law.

That same research – drawing on news reports, court records, and government notices – also found companies in manufacturing, entertainment, and services are hiring children under 16 to work in spite of clear legal prohibitions. In one case, a 13-year-old child working at a garment factory in Hebei Province fell, suffering fractures, and skin damage requiring graft surgery. In July 2024 alone, authorities in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, issued 39 administrative penalty notices to companies for child labor violations.

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But the true scale of these abuses almost certainly exceeds what is officially recorded or reported by state media or legal bodies, because that depends on victims and their families coming forward – a step many are unwilling to take given the risk of government retaliation.

That gap is precisely why international oversight matters. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) have repeatedly called on Beijing to document violations and release disaggregated data on child labor, but the Chinese authorities have not complied. No publicly available disaggregated data exists to assess how many children have been subject to child labor abuse, or whether any remedies have been applied.

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Foreign governments, too, have a role to play. The goods and services flowing from China, from clothing to electronics, touch the lives of consumers around the world – and so do the conditions under which they are produced.

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