APPENDIX 2
Auditors’ Insights from China: Shortcomings in Recruitment Practices
APPENDIX 2
Auditors’ Insights from China: Shortcomings in Recruitment Practices
Disclaimer: The following story is based on in-depth interviews CCR CSR conducted with three auditors in China. In order to protect their identity, aliases were used throughout the story. The views presented in this article are based on the interview transcripts and do not necessarily reflect the views of CCR CSR.
After conducting in-depth interviews with three auditors in China about their experiences with child labor, some clear patterns have emerged. Each auditor cited shortcomings in recruitment procedures or factory management systems as a key cause of child labor in factories. What’ s more, none of them had follow-up procedures to check on the status of the child following a child labor remediation procedure.
According to Mr. Zhang, an auditor from Shenzhen with nine years of auditing experience, child labor in Chinese factories exists for three reasons:
1. Labour shortages in coastal areas and urgent orders from clients
2. Regulation shortcomings in remote factories: normally the factory will hire local workers, who bring their children to the factories to work during school vacations
3. Factory management shortcomings: Child laborer use fake IDs, but the factory has no way of checking the authenticity of the IDs, and don’ t want to increase their HR expenses
“ They are afraid the auditor can discover the child, so they normally ask the child laborer to leave before the auditor arrives and they will not provide any record of attendance related to the child. They may also tell the child laborer to not show their ID and not to tell the auditor their age.”
A lack of awareness among the children’ s caregivers further exacerbates the situation:“ They don’ t care so much about the issue, as he / she is not their child and some of them even think that by leading the kids to the factory, they are solving problems for them.“
Ms. Tang( alias) a third-party auditor from Shanghai, confirms this:“ Their parents don’ t have the awareness that their children shouldn’ t work at this early age and they will ask the children’ s wish whether they want to continue studying in school or work in the factory. If they choose the factory, the parents will allow them.”
Suggestions for improvement
When it comes to supervising the child labor remediation process, Mr. Zhang feels a lot can be improved:
Lack of awareness and effective systems to prevent and remediate child labor
While about half of the factories Mr. Zhang has worked with are grateful that the auditors helped them identify shortcomings in their hiring procedures, the other half deliberately use child labor to reduce labor costs and find ways to cover it up:
“ We still need to improve the follow-up procedure. We have the procedure to ask the factory to provide the payment receipts for tuition and travel expenses to his / her guardians, but we will not follow up on the remediation plan.”
This means that there is no way of knowing whether the remediation case has been
27 Best Response: Auditors’ Insights on Child Labor in Asia
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