ILO and the CNTAC launch a report on labour protection of interns in Chinese textile and apparel enterprises

An ILO report show that a significant proportion of interns in Chinese textile and apparel enterprises worked without adequate legal protection and in some cases the working conditions amounted to forced labour.

Press release | 12 September 2014
BEIJING (ILO News) -- Today, the China National Textile and Apparel Council (CNTAC) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) Country Office for China and Mongolia jointly launched the Labour protection of interns in Chinese textile and apparel enterprises report in Beijing. The launch took place as part of the CNTAC Annual Conference on Social Responsibility of Chinese Textile and Apparel Industry.

In the past three decades, China has become the world’s largest producer and exporter in the textile and apparel industry. Manufacturing companies in China also have been expanding their internship programmes for vocational school and college students since a few years. When properly planned, supervised and managed, internships can be a fruitful learning experience for the students, facilitating the school-to-work transition and bringing benefits to both enterprises and schools. However, lack of attention to the protection of interns’ labour rights during the internship may lead to new challenges in the field of corporate social responsibility, including allegations of forced labour and child labour.

Results of the Labour protection of interns in Chinese textile and apparel enterprises study show that while the vast majority of the 290 interns participating in the survey considered the internship to be a useful learning experience, a significant proportion worked without adequate legal protection given the vulnerability resulting from their young age and the subordinate position in which they perform. In some cases, working conditions were found to amount to forced labour as the term is understood in international law – forced labour is understood to cover not just traditional forms of slavery but any type of economic performance not freely undertaken or from which the worker is not free to extricate him or herself. A little over half of interns (52.1 per cent) worked in conditions that in one way or another do not meet the national minimum standards of which they should be able to enjoy the protection, and one in every seven interns (14.8 per cent) were carrying out involuntary and coercive work during their internships constituting a situation of forced labour.

Tim De Meyer, Director of the ILO Country Office for China and Mongolia called for a regulatory framework for this hybrid training/work arrangement embedding publicly designed and approved training programmes overseen by authorities in charge of human resources as well as education. Sun Ruizhe, Vice President of CNTAC also emphasized the need of close cooperation of labour administration and education department on the protection of interns.

Labour protection of interns in Chinese textile and apparel enterprises report presents the results of a study carried out by the Office for Social Responsibility of the CNTAC with support from the ILO. Research for the study was carried out in November and December 2013 in ten textile and apparel sector enterprises in Jiangsu, Shandong, Fujian and Zhejiang provinces.

China is currently preparing to ratify ILO forced labour conventions No. 29 and No. 105, and has ratified the ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182) and the ILO Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138) in 2002 and 1999 respectively.


For more information, please contact:

Marja Paavilainen, Chief Technical Adviser,
Forced Labour Action in the Asian Region (FLARE project)
+65 9354 4178, paavilainen@ilo.org