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Furniture giant IKEA has made the astonishing admission that some of its suppliers in the developing world use exploitative child labour and others are involved in illegal logging which destroys protected forests.

Anders Dahlvig, the multi-national's Chief Executive Officer, made the candid revelations after IKEA's hypocrisy over its much-trumpeted 'ethical policies' was exposed by theWashington Post and the BBC.

Challenged by BBC Hard Talk presenter Stephen Sackur on Monday that his company was not as 'clean and green' as it claimed, Dahlvig said: 'If you know how production takes place in the world you cannot guarantee that, for instance, there is no child labour or that some wood doesn't comes from illegal (logging at protected) forests.'

But Dahlvig said IKEA was not being hypocritical with the slogan that its products had a 'low price but not at any price'. The company website asserts that all products must be manufactured in a responsible manner with as little effect on the environment as possible.

However, senior IKEA staff told the Washington Post, which has just completed a year-long investigation into deforestation and illegal logging, that the company annually inspect only 30 per cent of the wood used by Chinese partner firms that are among its major suppliers. And IKEA usually relied worldwide on paperwork presented by factories and logging companies themselves rather than independent inspectors. Sofia Beckham, IKEA's forestry co-ordinator, told the Washington Post: 'The falsification of documents is rampant.'

Dahlvig hit back by saying that IKEA has a 'very elaborate' checking system, to 'eradicate' child labour and illegal logging, which included its own specialist auditors and projects with reputable organisations like the World Wildlife Fund and UNICEF, the United Nations body for children.

RugmarkDespite this, IKEA refuses to sign up to the industry standard international Rugmark which guarantees - free trade products-style - that child...