Child labour uncovered in Apple's suppliers

APPLE has discovered multiple cases of child labour in its supply chain, including one Chinese company that employed 74 children under the age of 16, in the latest controversy over the technology giant's manufacturing methods.

An internal audit found a flipside to the Western consumer's insatiable thirst for innovative gadgets. It uncovered 106 cases of under-age labour being used at Apple suppliers last year and 70 cases historically.

The report follows a series of worker suicides over working conditions at Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that assembles must-have products such as the iPad and iPhone, and lethal explosions at other plants.

Apple's annual supplier report, which monitors nearly 400 suppliers, found that children were employed at 11 factories involved in making its products. Some had been recruited using forged identity papers.

The report uncovered a catalogue of other offences, ranging from mandatory pregnancy tests, to bonded workers whose wages are confiscated to pay debts.

One supplier, the circuit board component maker Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics, was axed by Apple after its audit suggested 74 children under the age of 16 were recruited to work on its production lines.

Apple said the children had been supplied by one of the region's largest labour agencies, Shenzhen Quanshun Human Resources. Its investigators claimed the agency had conspired with families to forge ID documents.

Apple's chief executive, Tim Cook, who in a previous role was responsible for building Apple's supply chain, has been under pressure to push through changes after the suicides at Foxconn, whose manufacturing operations are largely based in China. Last September a brawl involving up to 2000 workers forced Foxconn to close a plant in northern China.

Last year he described the use of underage labour as ''abhorrent'', saying it was ''extremely rare in our supply chain'', and stepped up measures to weed out bad practice including hiring an independent auditor, the Fair Labor Association.

''Under-age labour is a