The surprise toys inside the Kinder eggs are apparently put together in “filthy working conditions” by “poor families who endure long hours” and are paid almost nothing in Romania, according to an investigation published by British tabloid The Sun.

British journalist Nick Parker, The Sun’s chief foreign correspondent in Romania, went to the homes of two of these families, in Western Romania, to see how the surprise toys are being put into the yellow plastic eggs which then end up in the chocolate eggs produced by Italian confectionery group Ferrero.

One such family makes some RON 20 (GBP 3.8) for every 1,000 eggs they assemble. The mother, father, and three children work on this together. The article published by The Sun shows the mother, Timea Jurj, and her two children working on the Kinder eggs. The main ideea of the article is that the kids are forced to work on putting together the toys for up to 13 hours a day.

However, Timea Jurj claims that the information presented by The Sun is false. She says that the British journalists asked her and her children to take the photos published in the article. She also claims that the journalists promissed her husband a job in the UK so that they would appear in this article, according to local news agency Mediafax.

The woman admits that she puts together toys for Kinder eggs for a living but denies that she has her children do this as well. She says that there are other families who do the same, but that the British journalists haven't been interested in them because they don't have children.

The Sun correspondent talked to another woman says she makes RON 14 (GBP 2.66) for a bag of assembled eggs. She says the pay is terrible but that she doesn’t have other options to make a living, according to The Sun.

Besides the low pay for the workers who put together these toys, the conditions in which the toys are assembled also raise health and safety issues for the consumers.

Ferrero doesn’t have a confectionery factory in Romania, but the group works with local manufacturers that supply the toys for its Kinder eggs. One of these manufacturers is a company called Romaxa SA, owned by one of the richest families in Oradea, which subcontracts the production of the toys to smaller local firms.

Some of these firms prefer to hire poor local families to put together the plastic components that make the surprise toys. The Sun correspondent identified two of these companies, Prolegis and Adontradenet. However, their owners deny that the toys that the poor families assemble come from them. “Other factories in the area must be the source,” they both said.

In a statement, Ferrero said it banned the use of children in factories and guaranteed employees the minimum wage. It claimed suppliers Romexa and Prolegis passed a strict audit inspection in May, according to The Sun.

If the investigation published by The Sun turns out to be even partly fake, it would be the second such case in recent months. Earlier this year, British TV station Sky News presented a story about alleged gun dealers in Romania that would sell illegal firearms to terrorists. The story turned out to be false and several Romanians admitted to playing a script. They claimed they had been told that they would appear in a documentary, not a real news piece. The Romanian prosecutors opened and investigation and even went after the British journalists accusing them of spreading false and defamatory information about Romania.

Swiss Army combat boots, made in Romania by underpaid workers

editor@romania-insider.com