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China migrant labourers learn the law to win rights
(Agencies) Updated: 2008-03-02 16:56 A glance outside the window of his office in the southwestern city of Wanzhou, perched high over the Yangzte River and across the road from the local courts, offers a microcosm of the social dislocation across China that in part accounts for its vast army of migrant workers. Farmers still till vegetables and rice paddies in plots wedged between buildings rapidly rising above the river. Patches of green look tiny beneath construction cranes. To meet their needs, as the number of citizens' agents rises, trained lawyers, too, are turning their attention toward the once neglected area of labour law. The United Nations Development Programme, with funding from the Belgian government, started a pilot programme last year with the All-China Lawyers' Association to fund legal aid for migrant workers in 15 provinces. The Beijing branch alone has handled some 4,000 cases in the past year and about 30,000 workers have contacted the clinic. Despite the low pay-back for law firms handling these cases, those involved say it has been easy to attract lawyers. "They see it as a way of engaging in social transformation," said Alessandra Tisot, the UNDP's Senior Deputy Resident Representative in Beijing. "It's also a way to get training and experience in labour law, which is traditionally a sector that's been missing in Chinese law," she said. |
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