A foreign labor watchdog group has accused K'NEX Brands L.P. and Hasbro of using sweatshop labor to produce "Sesame Street" toys.
The National Labor Committee issued a report on July 14 entitled "Nightmare on 'Sesame Street'" that among other claims notes:
Sesame Street's Kid K’NEX “Ernie” construction toys are made at the Kai Da factory in Shenzhen City, China, by 600 mostly young workers, including a hundred 16 year olds [sic]high school students, and even several children. The child workers were seen in the factory in April, which is exactly the time a local newspaper in China exposed that hundreds, if not thousands of children were trafficked from Sichuan Province to the south of China, where they worked under slave labor conditions in toy and other assembly plants.
But
McClatchy Newspapers reports:
A spokesman for Hasbro, based in Pawtucket, R.I., said the company has never made any "Sesame Street" toys and does no business with the Kai Da factory cited in the report.
U.S. toymakers have attracted increased scrutiny since the lead-paint scare last year and the discovery of other potential dangers from toys made in China, including the
recall of Hasbro's Easy-Bake oven in July 2007.
If the report turns out to be true, I wonder how many people will actually think twice about buying those cute, cuddly toys for their kids? People seem to be concerned about the safety of their own children, but will they feel the same about someone else's kids located thousands of miles away in another country?
To read the entire National Labor Committee report click
here.
Did Sweatshop Labor Produce 'Sesame Street' Toy?
Linear Mode
