Where Was Your Smartphone Made?

Journalist Michelle Chen talks about her recent investigation for The Nation, “Was Your Smartphone Built in a Sweatshop?” She details an in-depth investigation of two Vietnamese Samsung production facilities and reveals an extremely vulnerable, mostly female workforce that may be sacrificing its neurological and reproductive health in brutal workshops. She draws on a study, a collaboration between the global environmental watchdog IPEN and the Vietnam-based Center for Gender, Family and Environment in Development (CGFED), based on interviews with 45 workers—80 percent of them women—at two factories in a provincial city in Vietnam. Their testimony revealed major health impacts related to toxic exposure and overwork.