'Rights of migrants must be protected'
By Fu Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-06-24 05:38

The government should take concrete steps to protect the rights of migrant workers as China's urbanization drive speeds up, experts said yesterday.

Although migrant workers from rural areas have become the backbone of many cities' economic activities, current policy barriers against them have harmed urbanization, according to researchers who produced this year's annual report on urban development for the China Mayors' Association.

In some places, discriminatory policies against migrants have prevented them from integrating into cities where they are treated like second-class citizens in terms of employment, social welfare, medical care and education provision for their children.

For example, migrant workers are not granted permanent residence in cities no matter how long they have lived there.

They are also not protected by the same minimum wage laws as their urban counterparts because of policy restrictions.

"It's a problem the government must face as migrants have already become part of the cities," said Niu Wenyuan, head of a research panel that completed the annual report.

Statistics indicate that nearly 90 million of China's 110 million rural surplus labourers have already moved into urban areas.

In Shanghai migrants account for 25.6 per cent of the total population while in Beijing the figure is 33.7 per cent.

In some coastal regions the rates are even higher.

Nearly half the population of Zhuhai and Guangzhou, in South China's Guangdong Province, are migrants.

"Farmers-turned-workers can contribute more to cities if they are freed from policy shackles," said Jiang Zhenghua, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, at a launch ceremony for the annual report.

The expert panel predicted China's urbanization rate would rise from its current 40 per cent to 75 per cent by 2050, when the population in cities and towns would reach between 1.1 -1.2 billion.

(China Daily 06/24/2005 page1)

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