An explosion at an illegal firecracker workshop in Guangxi has left 13 village school children dead and injured. All the victims were “left-behind children” whose parents were working in factories hundreds of kilometers away in neighbouring Guangdong.

China Labour Bulletin appears in the following article. Copyright remains with the original publisher.

Liz Heron
Updated on Jun 12, 2009

Ten years after the adoption of the International Labour Organization’s Convention on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour on 12 May 1999, there is little evidence that the Chinese government, which ratified the convention in 2002, is making a determined effort to tackle the problem.

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Part one: Those left behind

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China  Labour  Bulletin  appears  in  this article. Copyright remains with the original publisher

By Richard Spencer in Beijing
Last Updated: 5:27PM BST 22 Oct 2008

Child workers in China are particularly vulnerable to crime and exploitation because they lack the ability to protect themselves. Moreover, when victims' families seek compensation, they are often ignored, lied to and harassed. Photo by Sonya @flickr.com

There are 110 million migrant workers in China aged between 16 and 40 years old.  They left home in the hope of building a better life for themselves and their family, yet when they start a family of their own, they are faced with a stark choice; either take their children to the cities and subject them to institutionalized discrimination, or leave them behind in the countryside in the uncertain care of relatives.

Corporate and Social Responsibility is steadily gaining acceptance in China, but for CSR to effectively protect workers rights it must encourage the active participation of workers in the process. Photo by Photograffiti Shanghai

One year after the Shanxi brickyard slave labour scandal, many reportedly freed slaves have not yet returned home, others are forced to beg for a living, officials who failed in their duty of care are still on the job, and the slave traffickers and slave factories are still in business.