Cambodia Factories Grapple With Issue of Underage Workers

Young Teens Lie About Their Age to Get Hired as Plants Scramble for Staff

A growing number of Cambodian teens are leaving their families to go to work in factories far from home -- sometimes working as many as 80 hours a week. WSJ's Kate O'Keeffe and Sun Narin report. Photo: Will Baxter. (click to watch video)

Wall Street Journal | 29 Dec. 2013

SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia—In this quiet beach town, Lim Loeung says she spends up to 80 hours a week gluing soles onto shoes at a factory that does work for companies including Japanese sneaker-maker Asics Corp. 7936.TO +0.39% The factory believes Ms. Lim is at least 18 years old.

Except she's not. According to her parents and her birth record, Ms. Lim soon will turn 15.

Ms. Lim said that at her job interview a factory employee wrote an earlier birth year on her paperwork than the one indicated on the birth record she presented. "If they see our age is younger, they will not choose us," she said.

Her 20-year-old sister, Len, said a factory worker did the same thing when she applied there a couple of years ago before she had turned 18. 

Teen Employment in Cambodia

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Part of the Lim family sat on the front steps of their hut for a portrait.

A spokesman for the factory, New Star Shoes Co., denied the girls' claims. "We do not change the birthdays," said the spokesman. The factory doesn't employ any workers under 18, he said, but some people may lie about their age to get hired. He also said no one at the factory works 80 hours a week but declined to specify workers' schedules.

Katsumi Funakoshi, general manager of Asics' public-relations department, said the company recently conducted a third-party audit at New Star of labor and other matters. He said the inspection didn't find evidence of employees who were under age 15 but that it revealed "excessive working hours" and health and safety issues at the factory, which he said Asics is working to fix. 

Overall, child and teen labor is declining, according to recent United Nations surveys of numerous types of work across the world. But, despite that data, a Wall Street Journal investigation into the garment business indicates that underage labor continues to be an issue in that industry, especially involving teen workers who are able to pass themselves off as 18 or older. 

Teen hiring carries moral complexities particular to poor nations, where much of the world's clothes are sewn.

Cracking Down

Milestones in the history of child labor – and the efforts to combat it.
 
Late 1700s/1800s: Child labor expands in Industrial Revolution-era factories, especially in Great Britain.

1833: British Factory Act of 1833 forbids child employment under age 9 and limits hours older children can work in the textile trade. Later acts raised minimum age restrictions and extended rules to other industries.

1838: Charles Dickens publishes Oliver Twist, documenting the tough lives of impoverished youths 

1870s: Steps to begin making education compulsory in Great Britain help to further curb child labor there.

1904: National Child Labor Committee formed in U.S. as worries over child labor rise in that country.

1909: Photographer Lewis Hine draws further attention to child labor with photos in Day Laborers Before Their Time and other works. 

1938: Fair Labor Standards Act establishes minimum age restrictions for U.S., including a floor of 18 for hazardous occupations. 

1973: International Labour Organization "Convention No. 138" recommends minimum age for basic work of 15, with exceptions of 14 for some developing countries. 

1989: United Nations adopts Convention on the Rights of the Child

1996: U.S. celebrity Kathie Lee Gifford pledges to help reduce child labor in developing-world factories after learning clothing bearing her name was made by sweatshop workers.

1996: Life Magazine publishes expose about child workers making soccer balls for Nike and others in Pakistan
1998: Nike raises minimum age for workers at its footwear factories to 18. 

1999: Clinton administration approves executive order requiring federal agencies to maintain lists of products believed to be produced by forced child labor.

2008: U.N. survey finds significant decline in under-14 child labor. 

2010: Nike revises minimum-age rules to allow some employees as young as 16 in shoe factories, provided they aren't in hazardous work.

2013: Under-18 workers found among survivors of Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in Bangladesh. 

Sources: U.K. National Archives, U.K. Parliament, National Child Labor Committee, U.S. Department of Labour, International Labour Organization, U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Encyclopedia Britannica, Associated Press, Life Magazine, Nike Inc., WSJ reports

 

Employers in Cambodia, for instance, are required to ensure that workers under 18 are in safe environments and don't work overtime or night shifts. Cambodia has also ratified U.N. conventions designed to keep teens who are under age 18 from hazardous work that jeopardizes their health or morals.

But the definitions of hazards aren't always clear. And teens themselves, eager for money, sometimes present the identification documents of other people to appear older, according to labor activists, factory officials and some workers.

At the same time labor shortages, fueled by demand from global retailers, have set off a scramble for workers. "Every factory is short-staffed," said Mashiur Rahman, general manager of Universal Apparel (Cambodia) Co. and Southland (Cambodia) Co. garment operations in Phnom Penh. "I have 2,000 workers. I need 3,000."

Many people, including labor activists, believe it is vital to keep garment factories open to teens, in part because the jobs can help keep them away from the sex trade and other perils and allow the youngsters to help support their families. 

One risk is that the teens "fall off the radar and into more informal-sector work that's even less regulated and maybe even more dangerous, or morally damaging," said Simrin Singh, a child labor specialist at the U.N.'s International Labor Organization in Bangkok.

The number of youths engaged in child labor fell by nearly 78 million between 2000 and 2012 to 168 million, according to U.N. data released in September. The decline was especially pronounced among younger children and appeared to accelerate over the past four years.

Related

• Garment Makers Warn of Lengthy Shutdown
• Cambodian Garment Factories Come Under Scrutiny
• Cambodia Falls Short as Garment-Industry Model
• Asics Tightens Oversight in Cambodia
• The Man Who Places a Dollar Value on Bangladesh Factory Victims
• Bangladesh Victims Demand Payback
• Bangladesh: Voices From the Rubble

But scrutiny of the global garment trade, and the role young laborers continue to play in it, has increased after disasters including the April collapse of the Rana Plaza complex in Bangladesh, which killed more than 1,100 people. In Cambodia, accidents in May at two factories injured around 30 people and killed two, including a 15-year-old girl.

The 15-year-old, Kim Dany, was killed at a factory outside Phnom Penh after just two weeks on the job. She died when a mezzanine floor at the factory, Wing Star Shoes, collapsed.

Ms. Kim's parents said their daughter used an older neighbor's identity documents to get hired at the factory.

Ms. Kim's cousin, Vann Dany, who said she is 16 years old and worked in the same factory, said her cousin was unhappy and had been planning to quit. "She wanted to go back to school," said Ms. Vann, who quit after her cousin's death.

Wing Star has the same Taiwanese ownership as New Star, the factory where the Lim sisters work. 

Chea Sothavirith, director of administration at Wing Star, said the factory didn't know Ms. Kim was underage before she died because she had presented false documentation. He said he didn't know her cousin, Vann Dany.

"Since the incident happened, we respect the law more and we try to be stricter on child labor," Mr. Chea said. "We do more studies on the documents and work with authorities before recruiting them."

Ron Pietersen, senior general manager in the global legal and compliance division of Asics, which also contracts with Wing Star, said Ms. Kim's death was a wake-up call for the company, which is now taking a "tougher" approach with its suppliers to ensure workplace safety is a priority. For example, Mr. Pietersen said, Asics instructed all its supplier factories in Cambodia to join the U.N.'s Better Factories Cambodia program, which monitors factories, publishes its findings and offers training for factories and workers.

Concern about child labor in developing-world manufacturing intensified back in the 1990s after a series of news reports, including one involving child workers allegedly making soccer balls for Nike Inc. NKE -0.13% in Pakistan, elevated the issue. A Nike official said the soccer-ball report was a catalyst for the company to improve its supply chain. Nike in the late 1990s said it would no longer employ anyone under 18 in its shoe factories.

But global retailers are still grappling with the teen issue. Nike revised its earlier prohibition on shoe-factory staff younger than 18 in 2010 to allow some employees as young as 16, provided they aren't in hazardous work. Turning away workers under 18 could "potentially have unintended consequences" and deprive them of a way to move ahead in life, said Hannah Jones, Nike's vice president for sustainability. "This is not an easy issue."

Kailash Satyarthi, founder of New Delhi advocacy group Bachpan Bachao Andolan, or Save the Childhood Movement, said adolescents between 14 and 18 are particularly attractive to factory owners because they are more likely than younger children to have dropped out of school and are better able to work long hours.

In India, about 44% of the 530 young laborers the group removed from garment factories in the first half of this year because of unsafe or unfair conditions were 14-18 years old, he said. In all of 2011 that percentage was 27%. Several survivors of the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh who were interviewed by The Wall Street Journal were under 18.

Cambodia, a poor Southeast Asian country, burst onto the global garment scene in the 1990s when its leaders looked to create jobs after years of civil war. In the first 10 months of this year, the value of Cambodia's garment exports rose 20% to $4.61 billion over the previous year, according to the Commerce Ministry. Foreign direct investment rose 73% last year. 

This rapid growth makes it harder to find enough workers. 

In addition to ratifying U.N. conventions on child labor, Cambodia has set its own minimum-age rules. Children under 18 aren't allowed to do hazardous or overtime work or to sign employment contracts without a guardian's consent. Workers between 12 and 15 are prohibited from doing jobs that could interfere with school attendance, among other provisions. Children under 12 can't hold jobs.

Some factory owners decided it wasn't worth the trouble hiring youths under 18, given the extra rules, said Ken Loo, secretary-general of Cambodia's Garment Manufacturers' Association. 

But some youths, like Ms. Kim, falsify their age. In other instances, factories falsify paperwork to make it appear that all their employees are over 18, according to workers. The lack of a universal birth registration system in Cambodia complicates things.

Nine of the 12 workers interviewed one Sunday this year near the New Star factory, where the Lim sisters work, said they had been hired by New Star when they were under 18. Half were still under 18. Six of the nine said they had submitted false age information. Lim Loeung, the girl who said she spends up to 80 hours a week gluing soles, said factory supervisors falsified her age. Two workers didn't fully explain how they came to be hired despite their age.

The New Star spokesman said the factory in Sihanoukville doesn't employ anyone under 18 and that when workers have appeared particularly young, the company has made efforts to verify ages with parents. He said working conditions at New Star have "significantly improved" recently and that the factory two months ago joined the U.N. Better Factories Cambodia program that helps monitor factory conditions.

The two Lim sisters who were hired before they were 18 are part of a team that makes 550 pairs of shoes a day. They work in a glue section. The smell "chokes" them, they say.

Cambodian law prohibits children under 18 from working around "harmful chemical" agents but doesn't specify whether glue is considered such an item. The country's secretary of state at the Labor Ministry, Oum Mean, said the legality of minors working with glue would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis after an investigation.

The New Star spokesman said the factory mostly uses water-based adhesives, which are considered safer by experts, but that sometimes the factory "cannot avoid using regular glue."

Experts say the issue is complex. Jill Tucker, chief technical adviser of the U.N. factory-monitoring program Better Factories Cambodia, said specialists would have to examine which types of chemicals are used, the factory's ventilation system and other factors before knowing whether a factory is safe for minors.

"It's not as easy as 'all glues are dangerous,' or 'no glues are dangerous,' " she said.

Ms. Singh, the U.N. child-labor specialist, said the thought of young employees working with glue made her "super nervous." She said she would generally recommend that factories assign teens to tasks that have more certainty of being safer, such as packaging.

Lim Loeung's older sister Len requested a transfer to another area of the factory. Her request was denied, she said. When the factory hired Loeung this year, they assigned her to the same section.

The New Star spokesman didn't comment on the Lim sisters' account.

When Loeung started work this year, she earned $30 a month for a probationary period. Now she and her sister Len each earn around $150 a month. They send half of it home to their family, which lives in a wooden hut on stilts in the countryside.

"I wanted to help my family," 14-year-old Loeung said of her decision to join the shoe factory. "Working in the factory is not like working at home," she said. At home, "we can go to sleep whenever we want."

At her glue post, she works in silence. "We cannot talk because we have to finish work," she said. The factory, she said, recently boosted her workweek to 80 hours from 70.

The New Star representative said workers are paid between one-and-a-half to three times their normal hourly wages for work beyond eight hours a day. (The higher rates kick in for Sunday or holiday overtime.) 

Loeung and Len returned to their village for a joint interview with their parents. The Journal covered moderate expenses.

Their mother, Teum Heurn, a 46-year old rice farmer, said she is concerned for her daughters. 

"I'm afraid they'll get sick. I'm afraid they'll get cheated by the factory. I worry about their safety. I'm afraid my children will go out at night and make bad friends. I worry about drug trafficking and violence," she said.

But ultimately, she said, she didn't feel that she had a choice because her family—she has nine children—is poor. The Lims have no toilet or electricity, which would cost $5 a month. Every three or four days the family goes to town to recharge a battery that runs a lamp. Charging the battery costs around fifty cents.

"I am grateful to the factory for hiring my daughters," Ms. Teum said.

During the 420-kilometer drive back to Sihanoukville, the two Lim sisters chatted about their dreams for the future. Len said she and her older sister, Lim Lorn, hope one day to work in a beauty salon. But "we're not able to do it now," she said, because training costs money that they haven't been able to save.

In the back seat, Loeung bragged that she was a better singer and eater than Len. She gobbled up four chocolate cookies and sang a favorite Cambodian love song, "Promise Before Sleeping," as the car bounced along a country road past villages and farms.

Len started feeling carsick. Loeung, sprinkled with chocolate crumbs, patted her head to comfort her. Eventually the two collapsed onto each other under a blanket.

The girls pay $25 a month to rent a tiny room along the dirt alleys near the factory where they work. They sleep next to each other on a wooden platform that occupies most of the windowless room.

Their clothes hang on a string against the wall. For entertainment they go to a nearby mobile-phone shop where factory workers gather to buy local music and Thai videos to watch on their phones for about 25 cents a pop.

The girls chose their complex because it is for women only. There is a group of older male construction workers living nearby. The Lim girls said they are afraid of the older men.

"I am afraid they have bad intentions," Len said. "We cannot see well when we leave work because it is nighttime." 

Geox GEO.MI -0.23% SpA of Italy, which also manufactures shoes at the factory, said it is stepping up its questioning of factories it uses since the Rana Plaza disaster.

Juan Carlos Venti, head of external relations at Geox's parent company, LIR Finanziaria, said that it recently decided to continue getting products from New Star even though a local Geox inspector had raised suspicions of underage workers with the factory. He said the decision came after New Star agreed to Geox's demand that it start participating in Better Factories Cambodia. 

But speaking generally of some of the factories Geox looks at, Mr. Venti said: "It is increasingly difficult to get the right documents, not fakes. Some factories lie and we're scared by that because we don't want any problems."