Foxconn Update: Nintendo ‘investigating’ Wii U manufacturer’s underage employment

Nintendo has issued a response to the recent report that Wii U manufacturer Foxconn had been employing underage children in one of its Chinese factories. The report, which came to light yesterday, claimed that Foxconn's Yantai plant had employed numerous children under the age of 16 years old — the legal working age in China.

Although Foxconn took full responsibility for the violations and supposedly took "immediate steps" in taking action, Nintendo has responded to the situation.

Nintendo is in communication with Foxconn and is investigating the matter. We take our responsibilities as a global company very seriously and are committed to an ethical policy on sourcing, manufacture and labor. In order to ensure the continued fulfillment of our social responsibility throughout our supply chain, we established the Nintendo CSR Procurement Guidelines in July 2008. We require that all production partners, including Foxconn, comply with these Guidelines, which are based on relevant laws, international standards and guidelines. If we were to find that any of our production partners did not meet our guidelines, we would require them to modify their practices according to Nintendo’s policy. For more information about Nintendo’s Corporate Social Responsibility report, please visit http://www.nintendo.co.jp/csr/en/index.html.

Foxconn had been hired by Nintendo to manufacture the Wii U. The manufacturing giant also has ties to Apple, Dell, Sony, and Hewlett-Packard, although none of the other plants were discovered to have underage children working.