Entitled "No medal for the Olympics on labour rights", the report reveals that several Chinese factories manufacturing licensed bags, headgear and stationery for next year's games are in breach of basic fundamental labour standards.

According to the report, children as young as twelve are being employed, adult workers often receive pay packets which are half the legal minimum wage and employees of all ages are being forced to work very long shifts in poor health and safety conditions, sometimes for thirty days at a stretch.

Tim Noonan is the communications manager of the International Trade Union Confederation. The ITUC joined hands with the Clean Clothes Campaign that fights for fair conditions in the clothing and footwear industry, and Play Fair 2008, which is pushing for workers' rights in the sporting goods sector in the run up to the Beijing Games, to compile the evidence about the four factories under fire.

"Our research team were able to get into the factory in one case -- to get a job at the factory for a period of time," Noonan explains. "In the case of the other three factories, we conducted interviews with workers who work inside the factory and to conduct interviews outside the factories."

Burnt hands

Some workers complained of exposure to dangerous chemicals which resulted in burnt hands, whereas others said they had been ordered to lie about wages and conditions to external inspectors.

The report was purposefully released just ahead of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting in London on Tuesday. The aim was to push the committee into action. Noonan said he hoped that the IOC would re-enter discussions with the release of the report and the revelations of more violations of workers' rights.

Reacting to the report in a statement, the IOC said it was committed to being a socially responsible leader of the Olympic movement. It added that although it did not directly manage and control the production of Olympic-related products across the world, it could create standards and policies for everybody involved in staging the Games. One IOC spokeswoman on Monday said it was important sourcing was done "ethically."

Unfair play

But the Play Fair Campaign has existed since before the 2004 Olympic Games and Noonan does not think the IOC has acted ethically thus far: "We have requested again, to meet the International Olympic Committee but they have not answered the request."

"We have been trying now for four years to get the IOC to discuss, in a concrete and forward-thinking way, the proposals that we've been putting to them since prior to the Athens games. Unfortunately we've not been able to convince them of the correct way to solve these problems."

The vice-chairman of the 2008 organising committee in China has said that the allegations are being looked into and will be dealt with very seriously. He added it was "important to protect the reputation of the Olympic movement and the Beijing Olympic Games".

Beijing is hoping to earn fifty million US dollars from the sales of Olympic products and a further twenty million dollars from coins and stamps.