A 16-year-old vocational student arrived at a factory in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, for a internship. He worked 11-hour shifts – days and nights, weekdays and weekends – processing auto parts. A 17 year old started a internship at a technology company’s factory in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, working more than 10 hours a day carrying heavy boxes. Another 17 year old, assigned at an electronics manufacturing factory in Jiangxi Province in January 2022, worked 12-hour shifts.
The internships are OBLIGATORY for graduation from secondary vocational schools across China. Unfortunately, these three young people did not complete their studies. Although they expressed their deep distress to factory managers and teachers, all three died during their internship, two by suicide and one from a serious illness that had progressed too far before receiving adequate medical care.
These were not workplace accidents in the ordinary sense of the term. For vocational school students, internships are supposed to help develop job skills for the estimated 4 million children who graduate each year. But new search by the Chinese Human Rights Defenders Network (CHRD) shows that some internships involve unsafe conditions for student interns: long hours, vulnerability to workplace accidents, inappropriate work assignments, inadequate protection mechanisms, all in violation of domestic and international law.
That same research – drawing on news reports, court records and government notices – also found that companies in the manufacturing, entertainment and service industries hire children under 16 to work despite clear legal prohibitions. In one case, a 13-year-old child working in a garment factory in Hebei province fell, suffering fractures and skin damage requiring grafting. In July 2024 alone, authorities in Dongguan, Guangdong province, issued 39 administrative penalty notices to companies for child labor violations.
But the true scale of these abuses almost certainly exceeds what is officially recorded or reported by state media or judicial bodies, because it depends on victims and their families coming forward — a step many are unwilling to take given the risk of government reprisals.
This gap is precisely why international monitoring is important. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) have repeatedly stated called demanded Beijing document violations and publish disaggregated data on child labor, but Chinese authorities have not complied. There is no publicly available disaggregated data to assess how many children have been victims of child labor abuse or whether corrective measures have been implemented.
The responsibility to protect children does not lie solely with the government. Chinese and foreign companies, including U.S. and European companies, operating in and sourcing from China are obligated to act. As the adoption of environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies – which commit them to maintaining standards in working conditions, labor rights and environmental sustainability – becomes a priority common practiceThis new study also shows that actual company performance is alarmingly inconsistent.
Human rights due diligence should be conducted annually and published transparently. Companies must ensure that their working conditions and those of their suppliers comply with international standards. Businesses can go further – by seeking rights-respecting partnerships with professional schools to provide substantive, career-relevant internship opportunities that truly benefit students and businesses.
Foreign governments also have a role to play. Goods and services from China, from clothing to electronics, affect the lives of consumers around the world – as do the conditions in which they are produced. Ensuring that trade and bilateral agreements with China include meaningful protections against child labor is not a mere formality; it’s a recognition that no children should be involved in these supply chains in the first place – and that when they are, governments and businesses will urgently address these abuses. This means requiring regular reporting on compliance with child labor laws, CRC and ILO obligations, and establishing clear and enforceable consequences when these commitments are repeatedly violated.
On International Children’s Day in June 2025, President Xi Jinping exhorted: “We must not let children suffer, and no matter how poor they are, we must not deprive them of education. » If Xi is serious, the path forward is clear: treat internships at vocational schools as educational tools, not as sources of cheap, compliant labor. This means ending mandatory internships as graduation requirements until the government can ensure that students in these programs are truly protected and eradicate the scourge of child labor.
The students who have died – and those who remain at risk – are not just data or numbers. These are children who went to school, followed the rules to try to build their future and paid with their lives.