Samsung reemploys supplier caught using child labor

Samsung-worker

Samsung vowed to end child labor in its supply chain once and for all with its new ‘zero tolerance’ policy on child labor, but after coming down hard on Dongguan Shinyang Electronics this summer for employing under age workers, the Android maker has decided to just enforce 30% of its policy.

Rather than stripping the supplier of its contracts like the anti-child labor policy states it will, Reuters reports that Samsung has decided to order 30 percent fewer parts from the China-based firm that was caught with five children under the age of 16, working on its assembly lines.

“Samsung has decided to still take measures against Dongguan Shinyang to hold the supplier responsible for failing to monitor its subcontractors, in accordance with Samsung’s zero tolerance policy on child labour.”

Those measures amount to a mere slap on the hand to Dongguan Shinyang Electronics which could have seen its biggest freeze them out entirely. But Chinese authorities found that Dongguan hadn’t hired the workers directly, it was a subcontractor who had hired them through a labor agency.

Samsung’s not the only tech giant that has come under pressure to rid its supply chain of child labor, as Apple and Foxconn came under heavy scrutiny for labor conditions at factories in China.

China Labor Watch also found seven children under 16 working for one of Samsung’s suppliers in 2012, but Samsung took no action at the time. Samsung actions on Tuesday were its strongest objection yet to the use of child labor, even if it did shied away from making a bold statement to its suppliers that its ‘zero tolerance’ policy actually means zero chances.