Los Angeles Times:
China's Use of Child Labor Emerges From the Shadows
The deaths of five girls draw attention to the practice, common in struggling rural areas.
By Ching-Ching Ni, Times Staff Writer
BEIXINZHUANG, China — Christmas was just two days away and snow was falling when the five factory girls finished their shift. They'd been working for 12 hours, it was already after 1 a.m., and their dorm was freezing cold. One of them ran out to grab a bucket and some burning coal. The room warmed slightly. They drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, none of them woke up. They had been poisoned by the fumes. But their parents believe at least two of the girls died much more horrible deaths.
They charge that the owner of the canvas-making factory was so impatient to cover up the fact that three of the unconscious workers were underage that he rushed the girls into caskets while some were still alive....
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The case, made public months later by New York-based Human Rights in China, highlights this country's often hidden problem of child labor. The Chinese government officially forbids children under 16 from working, but critics say it does little to enforce the law. Statistics are hard to come by, but in some estimates, as many as 10 million school-age children are doing their part to turn China into a low-cost manufacturing powerhouse. China's one-child policy may have produced a generation of spoiled "little emperors" in the nation's relatively wealthy cities, but poverty and lopsided development have driven a disproportionate number of rural children out of the classrooms and into lives of labor....
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Things could get worse before they get better. Parts of southern China's coastal areas are experiencing a sudden labor shortage....That could drive up demand for underage workers. Already, children are victims of kidnappings and contract labor arrangements in which they are forced to work....
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-child13may13,0,3206974.story?coll=la-home-headlines 
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