The following account of a young Sichuanese worker's venture into to the bright lights of Guangzhou appeared in the newsletter of the Chinese NGO, Migrant Worker's Document Handling Centre.

My name is Tang Junmin, from Yilong County, Sichuan. In early 2000, I came to Panyu in Guangzhou as part of the vast army of migrant workers heading south. I was seeking a better way of life and was eager to leave behind the dissatisfaction of my life at home, wanting to see a bit more of life in this promised land.

I took work in the Shi Plastic and Metal Products Factory. That was in February 2001. It was a small factory run like a family workshop, with less than a hundred people. It had only been going for about three years; the owner was from Hong Kong. They were mainly making various rubber and plastic parts including silicon based and oil-resistant ones. It wasn't very big, but the equipment was pretty up to date.

I hadn't been working there three months when the owner sacked the factory manager. All the people closely connected to him were sacked at the same time too. Afterwards the owner brought in a man called Huang to be manager, who we heard was some distant relative of his on his wife's side. They set me working as an injection moulder. I was really happy, moulding work wasn't particularly hard, basically what would be classed as machine operating.

This Mr. Huang was a newcomer to the business and didn't understand the management and operating methods at the factory, so there was a fairly long period of time when we couldn't operate normally. Mr. Huang - he was a man of about 50 - was very stressed about this. There was a point when he was pretty much at his wit's end when I helped him sort out some technical problems with some of the products so I got in very well with him despite our difference in age.

Since we had this relationship, I put myself even harder into helping him out in his work; and because he went about it a very practical and sensible way the factory's business picked up in a pretty amazing fashion - orders were coming in thick and fast. We were putting in a lot of overtime including going right through the night, which was pretty tough. I was one of the ones doing a specially large amount of overnight overtime. As time went on my workload was getting steadily bigger and I was improving my productivity all the time. They were dumping all sorts of jobs on me, including quality control, dispatch, and even picking up the money to pay the wages and paying the water and electric bills.

In July 2002 we got an order for a new product, the serial number was 6PR001 but we called them the 'Hebei plastic rings'. It was a big order - they wanted 600,000, and they wanted them in a hurry. To start with, they set one of the moulders on filling this order. He said the product had a bad smell, and half way through the batch he was feeling dizzy, nauseous and his vision was blurring. So he got out of the job by going to see the doctor. But they wouldn't let the machine they'd set up for the job stand idle. When Manager Huang heard that no one wanted to do the job because of the funny smell he blew his top and ordered me to go and take over the machine. All I could do was grit my teeth and get down to it. I was at it for a week straight, with no one to relieve me.

The upshot was that I got an inflamm-ation in my throat, was dizzy and had blurred vision and felt weak all over. I spent a few hundred but that only sorted out the swelling in my throat, I was still often nauseous, getting headaches and fevers and itchy rashes in patches on my skin. Later I asked for a week off to get it treated. I hadn't completely got over it when I got a notice from the factory saying they had a rush job, so I was forced to summon up my strength and go back to work. After this my health just kept getting worse but the manager and the other overseers didn't seem to notice.

In August 2002, we got another big order for those Hebei plastic rings that made everyone turn pale just at the mention. Pretty much everyone now knew that this product was poisonous. To make sure that the work got done, Manager Huang stood up in front of the whole workforce and assured us that the product wasn't poisonous, even saying it had passed testing at the Centre for Disease Control. Manager Huang was looking at me while he said this, obviously he wanted me to do the work again. Seeing that I didn't respond he walked over and patted me on the shoulder and said 'This'll be the last time we ask you . . .' With everyone looking at us, the manager, a man of nearly fifty having to beg someone working for him to do a job, well, what else could I say? All I could do was resign myself to getting on with the job.

On the third day I was making the new batch, blowing them out with the air gun, I suddenly found my vision had gone blurred and I felt dizzy and a throbbing in my head. My limbs felt numb, my skin was itching and I was short of breath. Because of how I was feeling, I asked the foreman if someone else could take over from me. I told him I couldn't keep going, with my eyesight affected I couldn't guarantee the quality of what I was making. But it was no use. He said it was 'orders from above' and dared not go arranging for someone else to take over from me on his own initiative. So all I could do was finish off the day's work, tears in my eyes. As I was finishing, Manager Huang came by and saw the look on my face. I was crying when I told him that making this product was too bad for someone's head. He finally gave in to my request, and ordered that every moulder would take turns making the plastic rings.

Well, we got the batch finished and sent off on time, but my health just kept getting worse and worse, especially my eyesight. While we were finishing the rush order I put in I don't know how many requests for sick leave but they all got turned down. As time dragged on, the symptoms got worse for lack of treatment.

I finally got permission to take sick leave in mid September and rushed off for a check up at hospital. The specialist who saw me told me I'd come too late. If I'd come a month earlier, he said, then I could have had my sight fully restored, but now it was all too late. He said 'Because of external irritation your ability to see has dropped to a very low level.' I was very upset when he told me this, I felt like I'd been struck by lightning. I went to another hospital in Guangzhou city centre to find out more about what was wrong with me. The doctor there said I should have surgery immediately as there was still hope of restoring some of my eyesight. It would only cost just over a thousand yuan. I'd didn't have that kind of money at the time, so when I got home I asked the factory office if I could borrow money to pay for my treatment. They refused though, saying there was no precedent for them to lend money in a case like this.

So with no money to pay for it, my symptoms were getting worse again. Now, even if I had the money, it's too late to restore my vision. So from now on I'm going to be disabled, and I'll never see all the colourful variety of the world again. I though about how my parents, who are getting old now, wouldn't be able to rely on me to support them.

All I could do at the time was carry on working, and keep taking the medicine I'd been given. But in only two months all my savings were spent, though at least now I was free to take time off to go to the hospital whenever I needed to (at my own expense) which was a bit better than before. But the good times didn't last long. The evil scheming factory owner was soon up to his poisonous tricks again - he sacked his own relative Manager Huang. The reason for the sacking only the boss would know. All the other moulders were angry about it but didn't dare say anything. Maybe Huang guessed why the boss was sacking him. Not long before he was due to leave he secretly wrote me a note detailing how the reagents we used making the Hebei plastic rings were poisonous. Perhaps he'd finally discovered his con-science and wanted to give me some proof.

Two days after Huang had left, the new manager called me into his office and told me 'You've been sacked'. 'What did I do wrong?' I asked. 'You haven't done anything wrong, it's because your eyesight's no good. The boss is sacking you for your own good.'

I said 'I want to see the boss to ask him what this is all about.' 'That's not possible, the boss says he hasn't got the time.' I said if I wasn't going to get to see the boss there was no way I was just going to leave without a proper explanation of why they were sacking me. 'Then I'll call the police' the new manager threatened. And after that I really was carried forcibly off the premises by the security guards. When they'd got me outside the gate, they told me I'd have to wait four days before I could come back to get the wages owed me.

In a state of utter hopelessness, I went to lodge a complaint with the local Centre for Disease Control, then later I went to both Municipal and Provincial Centres for Prevention of Industrial Illness to get information and have some tests done. At the same time, I asked a lawyer to file a petition to the Labour Management Office, which they did on December 4, 2002. I was asking for the factory to pay me one month's salary in compensation and another month's salary in lieu of notice, a total of CNY 1,500, as was my right according to the Labour Law.

It came as a surprise to me when my appeal ran into problems. The Labour Office told me that in a case of suspected poisoning I should make my appeal to the Centre for Disease Control. But there they said it was a labour dispute and I should take my problem to the Labour Office. I was running back and forth between the two offices and couldn't get a straight answer out of either of them.

Later on, I went to a Centre for Prevention of Industrial Illness to lodge an official complaint. The staff there told me I should go and get evidence, that they'd only be able to handle the case if I got them the materials we used at the factory [to make the rings] and evidence about the working environment. Since I wasn't even allowed in the factory gate, there was no way I was going to be able to collect any evidence.

So today all I can do is stay in my rented room. I can't go out anywhere. Because I have such poor eyesight, not only can I not find work, even my every day life is difficult. I've been to see various levels of the Labour Department, but they always just tell me to keep waiting but that they'll sort it out for me. But the days keep going by, it's nearly New Year, and nothing's been resolved.

Following the internvention of the Migrant Worker's Document Handling Centre, the factory agreed in February 2002 to pay for Tang to receive treatment at the municipal Industrial Illness Clinic.

Years of hard labour to pay medical bills

I'm one of the unlucky women in this world. Right from when I got married and came to live with my husband's family in 1982, well, in the second year of our marriage my husband got sick, and we ended up spending a lot of money. I had to look after the kids and work the farm. After going to a lot of different hospitals for treatment, my husband slowly started to get better, and he was able to go away to work. After that we were able to build our own house. When my son turned one year old, what with building the house and paying for my husband's treatment we were 18,000 yuan in debt. That was no small sum back in 1983. To pay off the debt, I worked the land and raised pigs, but just as things were getting better, another disaster landed on the family. My brother in law who was working away got bone cancer. None of the treatment was any use and he died on September 27, 1997. We spent 40,000 yuan trying to treat his illness. Then because of the stress of this, my mother in law, who'd not been ill for many years, took a serious turn for the worse. When they did a check-up it turned out she had a brain tumour. We sold everything there was in the house to sell, and borrowed money, but the treatment didn't work and she died on the March 24 1998. We'd spent another 30,000 on her treatment. Losing two members of the family in less than a year cost us such a lot of money and was a terrible blow to our spirits.

The writer is 'Zhenlan' (振兰, surname not provided), from Yanqing County in Beijing Municipality. She sent this letter to the editor of 'Rural Women Knowing All' magazine. It appears, with several hundred others, in an anthology of readers' letters recently produced by the magazine: 沉默着的呐喊-农村妇女信札 (Cry of the Silent-Letters from Rural Women) edited by Xie Lihua (谢丽华) and Han Chun (韩春) and published by Rural Women Knowing All/Guizhou People's Publishing House. Guiyang 2002.

Mother mustn't know

The following account of a 16 year old sex worker appears in a Save the Children UK newsletter. Her story is relayed by one of the workers in a Women and Children's Development Centre supported by Save the Children in Ruili, Yunnan.

Xiao Tian is 16 years old and has only primary school education. She comes from a town in northeastern Yunnan and is the youngest peer educator.

After the first day of training, she asked to undergo a gynaecological exam, which found tiny Xiao Tian was infected with two kinds of venereal disease. She says that she always used to see a doctor in a private clinic and had already spent over 1000 yuan. The [project] Care Clinic only billed her for half the cost of the medication they prescribed.

Xiao Tian says she doesn't know how to play mahjong, and nor does she want to play, as she has to struggle to earn her money [and doesn't want to waste it gambling]. She doesn't smoke either and couldn't stand even a single puff the only time she tried. When we were talking about the health dangers of smoking and how it can easily lure people into drug use, Xiao Tan said 'I know this, so I won't smoke for sure'.

Xiao Tian has only worked in the sex industry for just over a month. She previously helped her sister run a barbecue stand in another small town. There were a lot of women working as prostitutes there too. Even though prostitutes make a lot of money, Xiao Tian claims she herself was never interested. 'I'm very well-behaved and never laugh and joke around with men. My family, relatives, and close friends all have a lot of faith in me. I've also worked in a hotel for only a few yuan a month.'

Later, she heard some women who worked as prostitutes were now able to open their own business with the money they've earned so she [changed her mind and] came to Ruili with the help of someone from her hometown .

'Business is good. I sometimes have three or four clients a day, I usually give my boss 30%,' she says. Xiao Tian works mainly at a nearby hotel, and occasionally goes to places farther away but always on foot.

'Girls I know all take taxis or mini-vans, but I don't. Taking a mini-van costs at least 4 yuan and a taxi costs 10 yuan! Sometimes the business doesn't happen, so that would be a waste of money, wouldn't it? Coming away from home to make money isn't easy, so I don't do that!

'I only reached third grade, but my older brother is in his last year of middle school. His grades are better than mine. Two kids going to school put a really heavy burden on a family, and besides, my parents also favour my brother.

'Right now, I can only send back a little bit of the money I make because I don't want my family to get suspicious, since I told my parents I was helping in a restaurant over here. And if I gave everything I earn to my family, what would happen when I need money and my family can't give me anything? It's better if I hang on to it. When my brother goes to high school, I can support my family a little. It'll be a lot simpler when he leaves high school and gets into university because then he can borrow money.'

Xiao Tian pays a lot of attention to her figure. She worries about whether or not she is fat - she does not dare eat too much - and if she is pretty.

When speaking of the future, she thinks about earning money as best she can. She may change professions before turning twenty and imagines going into business.

'I'm only doing this to build a foundation. Girls in this job don't like to do it too long and can only do it when they're fairly far from home. I know lots of people in Kunming, and if they knew it would bring more pressure, and that's not good for me, either. I don't have any relatives or acquaintances in Ruili, so it's less trouble to do it here.'

Xiao Tian mentions that the madam and other prostitutes will talk about some dangerous aspects of the profession and share some of the lessons they've learned from experience. But at times, people do not tell the truth, so she should think intelligently for herself. For example, a girl cannot let fellow prostitutes know she has contracted an illness, or it would hurt business.

Xiao Tian says since entering prostitution she has suffered from four or five venereal diseases, including a yeast infection and gonorrhea. She maintains she has gotten sick because the place (Ruili) is not good, and she wants to go somewhere else.