14 DAY TRIAL // A new week has dawned, and with it comes a report about Samsung and child labor. This issue has come up repeatedly in regards to this particular corporation, but it seems like it won't totally disappear anytime soon.
No matter how the companies that employ underage children feel about it, child labor is serious business, the sort that can really sour people, including general customers, to the idea of working with or buying products made by said companies or their suppliers.
All this not counting the consequences inflicted upon the children themselves. You see, child labor defines the employment of children in any work that prevents them from attaining normal education and deprives them of their childhood.
Tasks that are socially, physically, mentally, and morally harmful also fall under child labor. It's why the practice is considered exploitative by many countries and international organizations.
There are many laws that prevent child labor, or are meant to, but they aren't perfect, and some countries have a real problem in this area.
China itself has enacted legislations meant to prevent this practice, but numerous children still end up working alongside adults in various situations, especially agriculture and factories. It is hard to estimate the overall extent of child labor in that country, as the government has classified the data relating to it as “highly secret,” but reports clearly paint it as a persistent problem.
Problem that rises up to bite various worldwide corporations on an almost regular basis, as Samsung has once again showed.
Last week, Dongguan Shinyang Electronics Co. Ltd. was accused of employing underage workers. Samsung has suspended collaboration with that supplier until it checks for itself. It is like a rehashing of the child labor supplier scandals that took place back in 2012.
Curiously enough (though not altogether shocking), Samsung seems to have conducted three audits previously, some in 2013 and one on June 25 this year, but none of them showed divergence from the corporation's labor rules.
Following this newest investigation, Samsung may or may not break off relations permanently, since the zero tolerance for underage employment is part of its official policy. Not clear whether or not this would mean the collapse of the supplier.
Sadly, even with this latest ripple out of the way, it is highly probable that someone else related to Samsung, or a company similarly high in profile, will be found guilty of the same thing at some point in the future.