South Korean electronics giant Samsung has suspended business with a supplier in China, after company investigators found there was evidence of illegal use of child laborers at its plant.

Samsung started the investigation into the employee-hiring process at Shinyang Electronics Company in Dongguan City, Guangdong Province,  after the New York-based human rights group China Labor Watch (CWL) released a report last week that the factory was employing children under 16.

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Shinyang Electronics is a subsidiary of South Korean Shinyang Engineering Co Ltd. 

Samsung released a statement early Sunday saying it decided to suspend business with the factory "as it found evidence of suspected child labor" at the worksite.

Chinese labor authorities are also looking into the case.

Samsung said the suspension may become permanent once it is proved that the factory did hire children illegally.

The company's headquarters in Seoul said it maintains a "zero-tolerance" policy against the employment of children and conducts regular inspections of its supplier companies.

CWL had mentioned other labor violations at the Dongguan plant including unpaid overtime work, lack of social insurance, and lack of training among machine operators and other plant workers.

The watch dog also said Samsung's monitoring system was not effective, as the company had been conducting labor audits frequently but did not monitor the child-labor violations.

Neither Shinyang Engineering nor  its China subsidiary had come forward to comment on the CWL report and Samsung's decision.

The subsidiary employes more than 600 workers in Dongguan.

Earlier in July, Chinese labor officials halted operations at the Okaya Electronics Plant in the same city, after inspectors found more than 200 children working at the factory. 

TagsDongguan, Shnyang Electronics Company, Shinyang Engineering Ltd., Seoul