Nintendo says Foxconn violated its CSR guidelines

Underage child workers likely were involved in the production of the Wii U, Nintendo has confessed.

The findings come as a result of Nintendo’s own investigation into Foxconn practices that it instigated after claims of child labour emerged last week.

Nintendo was concerned to learn that underage individuals had been working at a Foxconn facility in China where components for some Nintendo products are produced,” Nintendo of America’s senior director of corporate communications Charlie Scibetta told Kotaku.

Nintendo investigated the incident and determined that this was a violation of the Nintendo Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Procurement Guidelines that all Nintendo production partners are required to follow, based on relevant laws, international standards and guidelines."

"As one of many companies that work with Foxconn to enhance CSR along the whole supply chain, we take this issue very seriously. As part of our ongoing procurement process, Nintendo staff will continue to carry out on-site inspections of our production partners in order to understand the actual on-site conditions and to promote socially responsible procurement."

Nintendo also pressed home that Foxconn has accepted full responsibility for the incident.

"Foxconn has taken full responsibility for this incident and has moved quickly to ensure that all affected individuals no longer work at Foxconn,” Scibetta added.

In fact, Foxconn’s own policies prohibit the employment of underage individuals and the company has pledged to Nintendo via direct communications to improve its process of enforcing this policy to avoid any similar issues in the future."

What the statement doesn’t address, however, is the seeming complacency with which Nintendo and countless other partners (including Apple, Samsung, Sony and Microsoft amongst many, many others) regard the increasingly scandalous conditions under which all Foxconn employees must work – underage or otherwise.