Migrant workers, women suffer massive discrimination in China: ILO

May 14, 2007, 13:43 GMT

Beijing - Migrant workers and women suffer massive discrimination in China, according to a report from the UN's International Labour Organization (ILO) released in Beijing on Monday.

The ILO's 2007 Global Report on Discrimination claimed that 60 per cent of China's estimated 150 million migrant workers did not possess the necessary household registration (hukou) to gain access to health care, education or better jobs.

Women are also paid 20 per cent less than men in China, the report said.

The gap is wider than in industrialized nations, where it lies between 5 and 15 per cent, and 'probably has a lot of discriminatory nature,' ILO China director Constance Thomas said in Beijing.

The director of international relations at China's Labour Ministry, Liu Xu, pointed out the difficulties in implementing in the labour market in practice the legal regulations against discrimination.

China faced 'still an uphill battle,' Liu said.

The ILO report criticized the fact that in many cases migrant workers did not have a contract, they often had to work longer hours and encountered problems being paid on time.

They often fell victim to accidents at work but could not then use health insurance or welfare services.

Migrant workers were responsible for 16 per cent of China's gross domestic product (GDP) growth over the last 20 years, and were 40 per cent of the urban workforce, the report said.

'Rural migrant workers constitute an asset for China's rapid economic development, but suffering from discrimination they are denied access to the wealth they helped to build,' the report said in its summary.

Despite some recent relaxations in the traditionally strict hukou system in China, which makes access to social welfare and schools dependent on a person's registered address, China still lacked the necessary institutional reforms in the reallocation of public services, the ILO report said.