China produces 75% of the world’s toys.
What’s behind the “Made in China” label attached to Chinese toys?
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27/09/2007
Yes. It’s cruel of us rich people making those poor Chinese people leave behind their subsistance farming to manufacture toys for our kids.
If we would only boycot their products it would force them back to the rural idyl that they stupidly keep doing their best to escape from
28/09/2007
Well if sending them back to subsistence farming will bring back good manufacturing jobs to the US, the I’m all for it.
28/09/2007
no wonder chinese toys dont last that long …
28/09/2007
This is not a prison. It’s a big toy factory. If it were a prison, do you think they’d let some western photographer in there?
28/09/2007
Question: Is this a former prison being used as a factory, or an active prison where the inmates assemble toys?
If it’s an active prison, then what heinous crimes could these innocent faces have committed?
28/09/2007
You’d think I’d feel bad but honestly I don’t. What else are you going to do with 1.5 Billion people? If sure if the rest of the world had that many extra people around they’d make more minimum wage jobs like these for those people.
28/09/2007
Globalisation has its evils. I’m not sure, however, that there is any evidence in these images to support the cliam that THIS factory is a prison. I’ve worked in grubbier looking places here in Canada.
28/09/2007
Although it is well documented that the Chinese Laogai system is used to manufacture all sorts of products, many of which are illegally exported to the US and elsewhere, I’ve seen these photos before and they are not from a Chinese prison.
This is a run of the mill Chinese toy factory… I don’t know if that’ll make most of you feel better or worse!
28/09/2007
That is a prison, really? Looks like a toy factory to me. I’m sure all those people would rather have no jobs.
Stupid hippies.
28/09/2007
OK, in UK the criminals gets their own TV in their cells while they can sit around doing nothing all day long! So let me get this straight, are people actually shocked by putting convicts to a productive use?
28/09/2007
boo fucking hoo
its not a prison, they can quit their job any time they want, it just so happens back breaking labor in humid insect infested fields is fucking shit and you can barely make enough food to feed yourself let alone buy things like electricity and tv’s
your idiocy embarrasses yourself, slaves throughout history have fought to free themselves from actual slavery, i’m sure the chinese workers at this factory appreciate you patronizing them by assuming they are too fucking stupid to quit a job and get something better
28/09/2007
Well….. some bodies got to do it!
28/09/2007
This is just exactly what our USA factories looked like back durring our Industrial Revolution…. Just the growing pains of a nation catching up to GB, USA.. Just look at the way India is moving, they too are moving the way the USA did, more to a service based industry. If you can do a job for cheaper, open a factory, if you find that its to hard to do in the USA due to regulations, liscenses, traifs, property, government oversight, well then elect officials that that keep the government responsibilities to a minimum.
Conversly, start a business that provides oversight to business that informs the public of problems and watch the free market balance things out.
28/09/2007
Well put tonupkid. You are absolutely right… they should show some US workers in a chip or shaving cream factory. same shit.
28/09/2007
Considering I recognize many of the photos from the documentary Mardi Gras: Made in China I call BS.
28/09/2007
Wow ur an idiot. The only option is farming ehh… how about not having children sweat shops and paying ppl normal f&#%ing wages. & tonupkid id like to c u work in a dark/wet/dirty room for 18+ hours and get paid 1$ a week. Enjoy ur f*$&ing nikes ok!!
28/09/2007
Fucking liar.
How can you tell the people in the pictures are prisoner?
28/09/2007
Maybe rich people like yourself should do something better for the less fortunate rather than waste time posting vain, worthless comments.
28/09/2007
@tonupkid…
Maybe you missed that this is a prison … they didn’t choose to be there to make a buck… they are in prison and this is slave labor.
Even if it were slave-wage labor instead of a prison factory, you should consider that this is the sort of thing that makes companies trip over themselves in their hurry to move jobs from the US to China and other countries.
If you boycott the products, then the Chinese military (who run many of their companies) won’t have any use for the labor, slave or not, and won’t have an excuse to imprison so many people anymore. Yeah, they can go back to sustinance farming or whatever.. at least they will have a life where their efforts reward their bellies rather than some fat-cat Chinese military bureaucrat. Besides, what is so bad about that life? Just because it is alien to you, who must have and have and have more and more and more – what? Crap? The consumerist life sure does produce a lot of crap – as in refuse. Perhaps some people understand that enough is, well, enough. A life lived with harmony and balance is a good life indeed.
28/09/2007
Well well well. Once again, propaganda is here. I just wonder why the hell Mattel would employ Chinese prisoners. Probably looking for cheap labor. If you ask me, we’ve brought this upon ourselves.
28/09/2007
Why is this marked as being a prison? This set of photos (and with some people smiling) is available elsewhere, and is clearly not a prison. Irresponsible naming of articles.
28/09/2007
I used to think about these people when i was shopping in the “1€ shops”. It is just amazing the stuffs that you can get just for 1€ and i guess how they are made. One day i bought for example one pinocchio of wood really good, but the cheap things have very often too many dark tales behing. Check for example these videos about chineses cat and dogs fur farms…
About 10 furs cost only 1$ and they kill animals like devils. I think that China have some things to learn, not only cheap prices…
28/09/2007
I’ve seen most of those photos before. What makes you think they were taken in a prison?
28/09/2007
How is this a prison? They’re all in plain clothes, there are no guards inside (a security guard outside a factory is not unusual) and they don’t seem to be required to wear prison uniforms.
28/09/2007
What’s stupid is that tonupkid didn’t read the article. These people don’t have freedom – THEY’RE PRISONERS!
28/09/2007
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to take from these pictures…that they have boring jobs? They seem to be fairly well nurished and their clothes look clean and in good condition. What are we supposed to take from this that is so horrible?
28/09/2007
[...] prison is a toy factory Chinese prison is a toy factory: Chinese prison is a toy [...]
28/09/2007
That’s a pretty misleading headline. That’s no prison, it IS a toy factory. I don’t really see any problems in any of these pictures. So the people are lined up in the first picture as they file by a guard. SO WHAT? He’s not armed (as far as I can tell).
And honestly, do you really expect me to believe that the Chinese government lets its prisoners wear street clothes in prison?
You’re a LIAR.
28/09/2007
This terrible life you call substinance farming is actually quite nice… no overcrowding, you own your own land, you keep what you produce by your own hands, no pollution, no noise, no commute, you live in beautiful countryside, and you take pride in what you make because its yours.
To work in a city factory is to be dispossed of your own destiny, to not own your own tools, to be paid a minimal wage that is spent on food you do not produce yourself and mostly for a tiny flat apartment in a big overcrowded building that you don’t own, and which is probably owned by the factory bosses themselves.
I’ll take the farm life, and freedom, any day, over working in a factory.
28/09/2007
Boycotting made in china products in my opinion might be abit too hard :S
28/09/2007
tonupkid – maybe you should learn to spell before you start question other peoples intelligence…
28/09/2007
tonupkid – maybe you should learn to spell before you start questioning other peoples intelligence…
28/09/2007
that’s a fucking retarded comment. most of the unskilled labor workforce is sent involuntarily by their impovrished families to factories, in hopes that they will earn degrees or be able to send money back home (promises which the factories often make).
have you lived in china? have you spoken to any factory workers?
congratulations on callously justifying your exploitation of fellow human beings.
28/09/2007
the second dumbest comment is that subsistance farming in china is “nice”. you are exploited, poor, and barely educated enough to support yourself. rural china is suffering an aids epidemic. the government is putting extremem demands on farmers and many of them are forced or coersed into leaving for an even worse fate in the cities at underpaid factory, construction or restaurant jobs.
28/09/2007
This is way their economy is killing ours.
28/09/2007
Duh, that’s not a prison you sick, warped, horn-honker. It’s a bloody factory, like any other in china. Get your facts stra
28/09/2007
[...] the facade of Chinese toy makers Here is a Chinese prison that is also a toy factory (see more pics at the [...]
28/09/2007
It should be of no concern to us. I don’t care how much they suffer or work.
28/09/2007
Haven’t yall ever seen a factory before? It’s the same. here in the U.S as is in China. Of course there aren’t that many factories here in the U.S. anymore.
Anyhow, if you think Chinese factories aren’t great, try the ones in Indonesia and India. Those factories are worst.
28/09/2007
Great pics. The title of the post doesn’t make clear what the prison is. It doesn’t seem like the production facilities are a prison, the only evidence is a guy in uniform in the first picture, but it seems like he’s probably just a security guard. Or is China itself the prison, metaphorically?
28/09/2007
This is so lame – not only this is NOT a prison, these photos are actually stolen from other sources!
28/09/2007
Hmmmm, look closely at the pics.
Number one: No bars on the windows. Dont prisons have bars??? Hmmmmm…..
Number two: don’t they have prison uniforms in prisons???
Wow!! This is a great way to start propaganda. It simply looks like a plain old factory to me.
OH! and the one guy that looks like a prison gaurd? Gee, he looks like a plain ol security guard in a plain ol factory to me.
Look, I’ve been to China and this is simply a PLAIN OLD FACTORY DUMBASS!!
Who starts this kind of crap anyway?
29/09/2007
These pictures have been reposted a few times but this is the first time i have seen them posted with the caption claiming the workers are actual prisoners making toys. I seriosly doubt this claim though.
They are walking past a guard in one photo, how many people dont walk past a security guard in thier building/factory/workplace?
29/09/2007
Prison or factory, it is taking YOUR future, your Family’s future. It is developing a good work ethic that our people are losing. It is is increasing the prosperity of their people, that we are losing. It is strengthening their currency, while the dollar hits record lows. It is providing money for their military while the entire costs of Iraq and Afghanistan are BORROWED money, NOT on the books. But hey, just so long as the Walmart family gets richer, THAT is whats important. Don’t worry, SOON you will be in THOSE pictures.
29/09/2007
This isn’t actually a prison. Its a factory that might as well be a prison. They force the workers to live there and keep them locked up so that they can’t leave or quit but they apply for jobs voluntarily – so in a sense it is a prison. I watched a documentary about this a few years ago but I can’t remember if there is some sort of lease the workers sign to say that they will work there for so long or what. What do you guys think people in the united states do? License plates are made by prisoners and they are also the ones that clean up the highways and do other jobs – those are just the two that come off the top of my head.
29/09/2007
What’s so wrong with these pictures? I can’t see any prison here, and only bad thing for me, and that comes from china, is too many people working together the same thing. I can’t see anything bad in any kind of working, but seeing so many people around you doing the same thing all day can be a little depressing, and you can loose sense of individuality.
But we’re so many on this little rock.
29/09/2007
very powerful and moving, thanks
29/09/2007
How can this be a prison when they are not in prison garb? Pose for the camera in prison? Give me a break!
30/09/2007
I think someone write wrong “Chines prison is toy factory”. It should be “Cines toy factory is a prison”.
30/09/2007
Cool, asi deberia de ser en todas las carceles. Deben de sacarle provecho a los criminales, vividores.
02/10/2007
WOW!!!!
to either how people here are so easily fooled,
or to how “prisoners” in China can wear whatever they want or take a nap whenever they want to.
04/10/2007
From the photos you can not make our that these girls are all prisoners. They look so innocent.
04/10/2007
no matter weither the people are in prison or not.
Big buisnesses are getting richer every day by exploiting these people.
I beleive that freedom as a peasant is better than 14h shifts barely paid under 1 dollar a day ( if not weeks).
02/11/2007
fake pics!
e.g. the first one, the guy wearing the blue form was not police.
cannot believe so many people here get fooled
11/11/2007
If you live there, you know what these pictures depict. The depict people who are working in factories where it is cramped, far from home, and there are thousands packed into factories to work. Not forced to work absent of their own will, but forced to work there because of their own economic struggles. Being far from home and away from loved ones is not fun. Not having enough money to live somewhere is not fun so you have to find somewhere to sleep. Food distribution by the company if supplied would require orderly lines to provide orderly distribution. Order is a big priority.
13/12/2007
very nice factory .. peoples are doing handworks … GREAT ..
this is surely a big toy company in china …
sorry .. but i don’t think that they are like prisoners… in the growing market u have to do lots of hard work .. this type of situation is everywhere in every industry …
BTW .. i belong to animation industry .. and i know we are also like this only … we love to do hard work for our family ..
IF SOMEONE CAN TELL ME HOWZ THE TOY INDUSTRY WILL BE IN COMING FUTURE… IT WILL BE GREAT HELP …
THANKS
17/12/2007
Great photos,
especially the portraits.
Can I ask where this prison is and how you got in there?
Keep up the amazing work!
02/02/2008
there’s no wway thats a prison, but its still sad, fuck disney!
03/02/2008
First of all, do your research before questioning these photos. They are merely documented proof of the labor force China offers.
But, there pay regardless of the currency exchange value is poor. They are normally forced to work long hours (the minimum is normally 60 per week.) They must work silently, and if they live in a dorm situation are normally faced with overcrowding and dirty accommodations.
Yes there are many people. but this institution of low-pay foreign labor force causes the destruction of many American based jobs.
Eventually things will change, you can merely take note of it through the looking glass.
11/04/2008
you gotta be kidding me. No uniform in prisons? no bars on the window?
this is just another Chinese factory.
21/06/2008
So many misinformed comments, all it does is spread lies and hate mongering.
The source is: _http://www.mazm.com/2007/09/19/38.toys-manufacture-in-china-25-pics.html which clearly shows it’s a toy factory.
I’ve written extensively about Chinese factories in the China beat blog and these factories are standard. There have been of course many factories in China that had deplorable working conditions but as economic conditions improve so do their standards. I would say this factory is on the slightly better end of working conditions with the majority of factories in China less “good looking”.
Most of these labourers are migrant workers that have chosen to leave their rural farming villages to work in factories so they may earn more money than they would back in the rice fields.
Contracts are signed to work for a period of time, usually from 6 month to a few years and these migrant workers are not slaves as some have mentioned. They are provided free meals with housing, some crowded some not, depending on the factory.
You might think they work for a few cents a day but most factory workers earn a few dollars a day, which still might seem unbelievable to others but you have to take into account that in other countries living costs are much more different. A few dollars a day is a general improvement from what they made back in their village, hence why they come in droves to work in factories.
There are of course numerous Chinese factories that are deplorable but you should not generalize that as indicative of the entire Chinese manufacturing base. Knowledge can go a long way to understanding!
22/07/2008
Look folks… it’s pretty simple… many of you noted that there are no bars on the windows, no prison garb on the “inmates”, and the prison guard looked like a regular security guard.
Am I the only person to notice the fact that there are both men AND women in the line exiting the building? As socially conservative as China is, do you really think they’d have co-ed prisons?
Regardless of all that… the Chinese people at the front line of their work force in these apparently “menial” jobs typically do not WANT to stay in their little rural villages. The young people of China aspire towards lifestyles much more akin to Western countries, as is obvious by anyone who has visited the country. Even with that cultural shift, they still carry a work ethic that would put most of you to shame.
Capitalism is rampart in China, and the divide between the rich and poor is shocking, but they’re just getting on with life, instead of waiting around for government hand-outs, they way people do in Western countries.
So… give it a rest with all the snide comments about a race of people you know nothing about… all you are doing is shouting out from the rooftops about how ignorant you are! Have a nice day!
25/08/2008
Hey – its Mickey Mouse and Sponge Bob. But are those legally licensed products or illegal copies?
25/09/2008
Chinese now have too much money. 40 billion dollar price tag olympics came at the cost of too many poor peoples lives. Poor people are sub-humans in china in every respect I lived there for 5 years i felt it hard. I hate it now and for ever…..
04/10/2008
This is LIKE being in prison. It’s not actually prison and these people are not criminals. They are just stuck in a difficult position needing to work in deplorable conditions just to make ends meet.
29/10/2008
Ok some of you are right: This is a typical (actually nicer) factory in China. Nope, not a prison, way too nice. The guard is not a prison guard. He’s just a guard. I live in China currently and we have these guards everywhere. These folks are common: non-educated and they were not taught english in school (and probably from a village somewhere). This is what they know. they know they need to work to support their family, so they work. Day in , day out, go home, and spend time with their families. When I first came to China, I was shell-shocked and just couldn’t understand how people could live like this. Now, I realize that back in the US, we are just terribly terribly spoiled. These people are very kind and love their families and children (all children, really, Im tellin’ ya, this is a kid culture). Please don’t judge because its being made in China and not the U.S. These women are just working to make a living: not to cause anyone in the US to loose a job (although these women work for far less than anyone in the states would).