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China
“To get rich is glorious” said Deng Xiaoping, a former leader of China. Since then, China has been pursuing this 'glory', implementing economic reforms which have led to unparalleled development and a huge rise in the standard of living for many.
But for most people in China, getting rich is not an option yet. Most of China's huge 1.3 billion population lives in remote rural areas in central and western China which have not yet felt any of the benefits of economic reform enjoyed by the more affluent eastern coastal areas of the country. These people, largely cut off from the rest of the country and still trying to eke out a subsistence existence for themselves from the land, have heard of the great things happening in China's big cities and, where possible, they want a piece of this action.
It is estimated that there are now 100 million migrant workers in China, people who have left the countryside and headed for the cities in search of higher incomes and a better life for themselves. Some 200 million more rural dwellers are said to be 'ready to migrate' if the opportunity presents itself. This means a huge body of people on the move, more than the total population of many countries.
Unfortunately, China's migrants from the countryside arrive in the big cities and find their streets anything but paved with gold. Lacking education and skills, most of them end up performing menial tasks in the construction industry or factories, or as street sweepers and garbage collectors. These jobs are popularly characterised as the “Three D's - Dirty, Derogatory and Dangerous”, work which city dwellers don't want to touch. Lacking legal registration in the cities (all Chinese people are registered to the place they come from), migrant workers are often forced to labour without any formal legal contract, often resulting in them receiving only a fraction of the meagre wages owed to them, as well as no legal recourse should they suffer accidents at work. Migrant workers in China arrive in the cities feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the bright lights and fast pace. They often cannot speak standard Chinese and tend to huddle together in shanty towns made up of communities all originating from the same areas of China.
Due to their unregistered status in the cities, migrant workers have no access to education or medical care for their children, so schools for migrant workers' children have now been established in some areas by private individuals and are being subsidised by groups like the Amity Foundation (the organisation I work for). Amity is also supporting legal aid initiatives to offer migrant workers a measure of justice when they suffer industrial accidents or are denied the pay due to them by their employers. China's current economic development is being built largely on the sweat and toil of her migrant workers, and such initiatives attempt to recognise this fact and restore a measure of dignity and human worth to such workers.
Editorial Note: Amity was founded in 1985 by leading Chinese Christians and is a Chinese-run Non-Governmental Organisation based in Nanjing China and with an office in Hong Kong.
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