Apple manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group admitted to employing underage interns to work at one of their China factories on Tuesday.
The company confirmed that they somehow employed underage citizens as young as 14 to work at their Taiwan based plant according to New China News Agency.
Foxconn has yet to reveal how many underage interns were found working for them.
"We recognize that full responsibility for these violations rests with our company and we have apologized to each of the students for our role in this action," Foxconn said in a statement to the Associated Press. "Any Foxconn employee found, through our investigation, to be responsible for these violations will have their employment immediately terminated."
Foxconn specializes in products for mega corporations like Sony and Apple. They were forced to confess the mistake after reports released by a rights group was put out stating that they were breaking the law by employing students under the legal age of 16.
One of the main products interns were forced to work on included making iPhones as well as many other Apple products. The interns were sent to the company after Foxconn asked for assistance from the government when they expressed their desperate need for workers according to the Los Angeles Times.
"Our investigation has shown that the interns in question, who ranged in age from 14 to 16, had worked in that campus for approximately three weeks," Foxconn said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. "We have found no evidence of similar violations in any of our other campuses in China but we will not hesitate to take immediate action in any campus if any violations are discovered."
The intern dilemma was discovered after Foxconn was investigated by the Fair Labor Association sent by Apple. As part of their investigation, the Labor Association required employees to verify their ages.
The interns had worked at Foxconn for over three weeks already before the reports were released to the public. Interns represent a little over 2.6 percent of the 1.2 million employees that work for the company according to the Economic Times.
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