Bible Publisher Confronted Over Link with Human-Rights Abuser China
by Chad Groening
October 8, 2004
(AgapePress) - A major U.S. publisher of Bibles is coming under fire for having some of its Bibles printed in China, where Christians are being tortured and even killed for their faith. The move is being criticized by a human-rights organization that is skeptical of the company's safeguards against employee abuse.Zondervan Publishing Company, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a subsidiary of Harper Collins, which is owned by media magnate Rupert Murdoch. Zondervan is the exclusive publisher of the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible. The copyright page of the new Student Bible Compact carries the notation: "Printed in China." Al Kerkstra, senior vice president for support operations at Zondervan, explains the publisher's rationale.
"The reason we originally went there is obvious: you can get things done at a price that you can't get things done in the States," Kerkstra explains. "Now, we believe that doing business in China gives us an opportunity to improve the living conditions and the human-rights conditions for the people and the companies we do business with."
But Steve Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute -- a group that monitors human-rights abuses in Communist China -- does not think an American Bible company should put profit over principle.
"It is an absolute travesty to have Bibles printed simply because it's cheaper than having them printed elsewhere," Mosher exclaims. "We should be shipping Bibles into China, a country that imprisons and tortures and kills Christians for practicing their faith."
Kerkstra says Zondervan has safeguards which prevents its workers from being abused. For one thing, he says, the company has established a code of conduct for how workers are to be treated in their plants.
The Bible publisher's spokesman explains that companies with which they are going to work are told up front what the expectations are in the business relationship. "[We tell them] 'we're going to give you a certain amount of business, but this is what it means: you need to open yourself up to us and you need to be able to establish that you can meet this code of conduct.'"
Mosher remains skeptical. "I do not believe that workers anywhere in China, including in the Zondervan factory, are free to organize labor unions or free to strike for better working conditions -- or free to demand that the government stop limiting them to one child," he says, maintaining that "women in that factory will be sterilized, will be aborted, will be contracepted [sic]."
Mosher, who has called for a boycott of all Chinese goods, says he is hopeful Christians will include in that an embargo on Bibles printed in Communist China.
Tyndale House Publishers has confirmed that it also prints some Bibles in China, but a company representative refused to comment on the inquiry.
