Chinese firm used child labour but not for Games

BEIJING, June 14 (Reuters) Chinese investigators said that a stationery company accused of using child labour to produce merchandise for next year's Olympics had illegally employed children, but not to make Olympic products, state media reported.

A report by the Playfair Alliance released in London on Monday said four factories in southern China were guilty of exploiting workers and that Lekit Stationery had employed ''more than 20'' children younger than 16.

An investigation by local authorities in Dongguan, an industrial hub in China's southern Guangdong province, had found that Lekit Stationery had hired eight schoolchildren under the age of 16 during school holidays in January and February, Xinhua news agency said today.

The children, including six middle-school students and two from primary school, were paid 32 yuan (4.20 dollars) for a 12-hour day and had worked six days a week, Xinhua said, citing the investigation.

The students were hired to ''pack notebooks, not Olympic-licensed products'', Xinhua said, and had told investigators that they had not made Olympic souvenirs.

''The city government says the under-aged children should not have been working at all and that Lekit underpaid them,'' Xinhua said.

The Organising Committee for the Beijing Olympic Games (BOCOG) had summoned Lekit and three other manufacturers to answer charges they had breached labour laws in the manufacture of products for the Games, Xinhua said.

''The legal affairs department has started to look into the accusations and the results will be announced as soon as the investigation concludes,'' Xinhua quoted Lu Chuan, a BOCOG spokesman, as saying.

REUTERS SAM RAI2200