Chinese children deliver food, help courier riders with orders, spark safety concerns
Authorities clamp down on outsourcing-to-children method used by food delivery riders who get kids to undertake chore of finding customers
A new trend of children helping food couriers deliver orders that had emerged in a well-known electronics market in southern China has been nipped in the bud by the authorities.
Huaqiangbei market in the city of Shenzhen is one of the world’s biggest electronics markets. It is full of children during the summer holidays.
The children operated as gig workers who helped delivery riders carry orders and locate customers.
They wore a payment QR code around their necks and fought for orders whenever a rider wearing blue and yellow, the uniforms of China’s two biggest food delivery platforms, Meituan and Alibaba Group Holding’s Ele.me, came along.
Alibaba is the owner of the South China Morning Post.