Firms to Face Fines for Employing Kids

CHINAdaily

5/22/08 3:16pm

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/language_tips/cdaudio/2008-05/22/content_6705156.htm

Summary: The article describes the law suit against companies in Dongguan, Guangdong province for hiring underage workers and abusing the laws of child labor. The local labor department stated that they could be fined up to $300,000 yuan as compensation for employing children. Papers report over a thousand children in total were working after raids of various companies by Chinese officials. However, the officials claim that the reports were exaggerated and only 8 children were found in Dongguan.

A) This article related to the AP World History Theme, “creation, expansion, and interaction of economic systems,” because it involves the importance of Labor systems in China.

B) China has a known history for the use of child labor in places like sweatshops and factories, however laws have been made as an attempt to correct this situation. However, this occasion has proved that child labor is not completely handled by the government.

C) The point of view of the article is most likely a British female because the author’s name is Helen and the voice recording sounds like the person has a British accent. This would indicate that the person is an outsider to the topic being discussed.

D) This article may be biased in that being from an outside standpoint, the person may feel that their country has a better handle on child labor and would use more criticizing language.

E) A missing point of view in the article is that of one of the children forced into labor, because they would fully understand the conditions they’d been placed under and how many other children accompanied them in this horrible situation.

F) I don’t think it was surprising that child labor still exists in China. It’s been known that child labor was very common, and it seems impossible that the laws could be enforced across the whole nation. However, these poor children probably need the money to feed themselves and their families so perhaps they want to work out of desperation? It would be a good point of view to have been included in the article.