By SHUBHAJIT Chakraborty

Shanghai, Feb. 28 – After the discovery of at least 15 children to be working in the factories that supply Apple, the company has admitted that child labor was used at the factories, though didn’t disclose the names of them. Most of the factories build their computers, iPods and mobile phones, based in China.

Apple has factories in Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, the Czech Republic and the US. In most of the factories in China, child labor is being used. Apple said that the child workers are not being used in any of its factories now and the workers are not juvenile.

“In each of the three facilities, we required a review of all employment records for the year as well as a complete analysis of the hiring process to clarify how underage people had been able to gain employment,” Apple said in an annual report on its suppliers.

In his annual report Apple criticized factories for using underage workers and poor condition. Last week 62 workers at a factory that produces products of Apple and Nokia were poisoned by hexane, a toxic chemical that causes muscle degeneration and blur vision.

Apart for those problems, treating of employees is also very harsh in these factories. It has been reported that last year Sun Danyong, a 25 years old university graduate at Foxconn, a Taiwanese company, one of the biggest suppliers of Apple, committed suicide. He was accused of stealing a prototype for the iPhone. After the investigation it was revealed that a security

guard had beaten him and subsequently he jumped from 12th floor. Foxconn, one of the largest suppliers of Apple products, earlier has been charged for treating their employees extremely rough.