According to the New York Times on Saturday, the U.S. Department of Labour has launched investigations into Tyson Foods and Perdue Farms to find out if migrant children were employed to clean slaughterhouses.

The investigations were started by the Labour Department after a New York Times Magazine article this week revealed that migrant youngsters were working nighttime shifts for contractors in the corporations’ operations on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

Verification of the Times report’s details was not possible. A request for comment from Reuters was not immediately answered by the Labour Department or Tyson Foods.

A spokeswoman for Perdue claimed that although the firm had not been informed of the investigation, it planned to fully comply with any federal probe into the subject.

“We are conducting a comprehensive third-party audit of child labor prevention and protection procedures including a compliance audit of contractors,” Purdue’s spokesperson said.

According to the publication, the Labour Department has also started looking into Fayette Industrial and QSI, which manage cleaning shifts for Perdue and Tyson, respectively.

A request for comment from QSI was not immediately complied with. A comment from Fayette Industrial could not be obtained right away.

The Biden administration asked Tyson and Perdue, among other meat producers, in a letter it sent them in April to check their supply chains for signs of child labour.

The letter was a component of a campaign to reduce the use of illegal child labour in various industries, which was led by the Labour Department.

(Adapted from Reuters.com)