Apple Admits to Using Child Labor

Posted on Mar 1, 2010

Flickr / Johan Larsson

iScandal: An annual Apple report revealed some seriously problematic practices taking place among its suppliers.

Something’s rotten in the Apple empire—a few things, actually. For starters, the technology titan revealed that at least 11 children, who the company claimed were 15 years old, were employed in three Apple-affiliated factories in undisclosed locations. That’s not good, and neither were other alarming details that emerged in Apple’s annual report about its suppliers.  —KA

The Telegraph:

Apple said the child workers are now no longer being used, or are no longer underage. “In each of the three facilities, we required a review of all employment records for the year as well as a complete analysis of the hiring process to clarify how underage people had been able to gain employment,” Apple said, in an annual report on its suppliers.

Apple has been repeatedly criticised for using factories that abuse workers and where conditions are poor. Last week, it emerged that 62 workers at a factory that manufactures products for Apple and Nokia had been poisoned by n-hexane, a toxic chemical that can cause muscular degeneration and blur eyesight. Apple has not commented on the problems at the plant, which is run by Wintek, in the Chinese city of Suzhou.

[...] Last year, an employee at Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that is one of Apple’s biggest suppliers, committed suicide after being accused of stealing a prototype for the iPhone.

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