"The phenomenon is mainly due to companies chasing capital benefits, as using child labor can lower labor costs," Wang said.
Lack of deterrents, left-behind children fuel underage worker recruitment
Wang Pan, born in June 2001 in Central China's Hunan Province, was a worker at a Zhiya underwear factory in the Nanhai district of Foshan. Wang was found unconscious on the morning of April 11 in the apartment he and his mother rented and was declared dead after emergency first aid failed to revive him, Guangzhou Daily reported Sunday.
In an article published in the Chinese Journal of Sociology in 2010, Lu Shizhen, a vice president of China Youth and Children Research Association estimated that China's cities were home to between 2 million and 3 million child laborers.
The report also stated that Wang had to work 11 or 12 hours a day in the Zhiya factory since he signed a contract with the company on March 5.
The punishment currently imposed on employers of child laborers is not a sufficient deterrent, Wang Jiangsong, a professor at the China Institute of Industrial Relations told the Global Times.
Hu Xingdou, a professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology, said that many child laborers can easily obtain fake ID cards, Investor Journal reported. "Such hidden labor relations could make already vulnerable child laborers more disadvantaged. For fear of losing their jobs, they will not bargain for more payment," Hu was quoted as saying in the report.
Under a 2002 State Council regulation on the prohibition of child labor, employers can be fined 5,000 yuan per month for each child laborer they hire.
Though the Labor Law of China bans the recruitment of juveniles under age 16, violators are only required to pay a fine and rectify their crime, while a company's licenses can be revoked under "serious circumstances."
