American entertainment giant Disney is under fire from campaigners after an under-age worker died in an industrial accident at a south China factory owned by one of its suppliers.

Liu Pan was just 17 years old when he was killed while trying to clear jammed machinery at the Yiu Wah paper factory in Dongguan, Guangdong Province on April 6 this year. His body was so mutilated that his parents did not recognize their son when called to the factory after the accident.

Liu Pan's factory identity card shows that he was employed at the Yiu
Wah stationery factory on December 26, 2006 when he was either
fourteen or fifteen years old.

Liu's factory identity card, issued on December 26 shows that he had been working at Yiu Wah for more than two years at the time of his death. At best he was fifteen years old when first employed, and he may have been as young as fourteen. Chinese labor law sets the minimum working age at sixteen. For hazardous occupations the minimum working age is eighteen.

According to its website, Yiu Wah manufactures books, brochures, leaflets, posters, office paper stationery, photo frames, photo albums, gift premiums and other items. The company head office is in Hong Kong.

US-based campaign group China Labor Watch (CLW) claims that the Yiu Wah factory often employs under-age workers, some as young as thirteen during busy periods. Other poor practices at the plant include low pay, compulsory overtime, use of outdated machinery, little or no training, denying workers paid vacation and even maternity leave, according to CLW.

CLW claims Disney audited the Yiu Wah factory several times over the past two years and repeatedly certified it as meeting its labor standards. The campaign group has written to Disney CEO Robert A. Iger to ask him how Disney's audits failed to notice the use of child labor and untrained workers operating dangerous machinery. The group is calling on Disney to draw up and implement an action plan to correct the problems at Yiu Wah.

A notice stating that Yiu Wah is a Disney audited manufacturer appears to have been removed from the Yiu Wah website. An image of an ISO9001 certificate issued by Moody International is displayed on the site. Alongside it is the apparently contradictory statement “Yiu Wah is currently adapting all areas of its production to meet the requirements of ISO9001 standards.”

A notice on the Yiu Wah website states that the company has been
audited and approved by the Walt Disney Company.

China.org.cn emailed and repeatedly telephoned Yiu Wah's Hong Kong office to ask for an interview with the company management. We were told that director Phoebe Chan was out of the office. Nobody returned our calls. A reporter eventually spoke to staff at the Dongguan factory who did not dispute the facts of the story as reported in the Chinese language press, but said they had no further comment to make.

It is believed Liu Pan's family have accepted a compensation package from Yiu Wah and have returned to their home in Sichuan Province. Liu Pan's sister said her brother was an optimistic and bright young man whose ambition was to study automobiles. It is a dream that, sadly, Liu Pan will never realize.

(China.org.cn by John Sexton, additional reporting by Wu Nanlan May 17, 2009)