Residents in remote areas of China say children younger than 13 years old have been lured to work in factories for as little as 25 cents an hour.

School children have been recruited from poor villages in southwestern China to work in low-paying, ill-equipped factories that supply clothes, toys and electronics for companies around the world, The New York Times reported Saturday.

Chinese officials have begun a probe into whether youths of the Yi ethnic minority group in Liangshan County were taken to factories in great need of low-cost labor, the report said.

Liangshan officials last week said they had arrested numerous people suspected of hiring children unlawfully for factory work.

Authorities in Dongguan, an area where children worked in factories, said at least 160 youths had been rescued.

Authorities have recently started downplaying the controversial labor issue, claiming there is insufficient proof of major illegal child labor, the Times said.

A two-day federal probe of at least 3,000 factories near Dongguan uncovered only six to 10 youths, authorities said.

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