Wii U manufacturer Foxconn admits to child employment
Electronics maker Foxconn, the manufacturer behind the Wii U, has admitted that it employed underage children in one of its Chinese factories amid recent allegations.
Reuters reports that Foxcon “had found some interns at a plant in Yantai, in northeastern Shandong province, were under the legal working age of 16.” Some teenagers were as young as 14. It’s unclear, however, just how many children were involved.
Foxcon said in a statement:
“We recognize that full responsibility for these violations rests with our company and we have apologized to each of the students for our role in this action… it is also a violation of Foxconn policy and immediate steps have been taken to return the interns in question to their educational institutions.”
Through an unnamed Yantai government official, China’s official Xinhua news agency claims that 56 underage interns will return to school. That would encompass 2.7% of Foxconn’s workforce, which employs 1.2 million employees in total.
