Hum2+Group6

toc =International Labor and Migration Rules=

=Pages= Home | Our Topic | Action Plan | Resources

=Hope Of Migrants' Education (HOME)=

Group Members
Amy, Casey, and Crystal

=Persuasive Paragraph= Have you ever thought of the people that were forced to move because they had been left with no other option? Or the people who carry the whole of China's economy on their backs? What about the construction workers who have not seen their children in years, the broken and battered floating population? In China, there are over 150 million migrant workers. Migrant workers are rural villagers thrust into a whirring demanding economy, bruising their knees and dangling from ropes, merely striving to scrape a living. We have seen the children on the streets. We have seen the men and women who can work all their lives, but still never find their way out of the biting edge of poverty. Few migrant children make it past middle school, much less high school--college is only a blurred dream.

But who is willing to help them? Who will give these children hope for the future; who will free them from their chains? This morbid fate is not yet chiseled in stone. However, the power of one does not exist; only through your help and support can we succeed in leading these people out of the darkness and into the sunlight. Would you have your children slaving away in mines, day after day, the warmth and security of home miles away? **You** make the final decision.

=Background Information= Millions of immigrants from rural villages litter the metropolis of Shanghai. In China, more than 10 million rural migrants move to cities every year. It is estimated that over 11% of China’s population, 150 million people, are migrant workers. As China's economy escalates, cities and companies rise from the countryside, and so does the demand for labor. However, would the well-off Shanghainese people dig their hands in mud, hang from ropes from the tops of buildings, climb roofs and dig tunnels? No. The ones who do the dirty work are the migrants. While these cities prosper, starving villagers spill into the cities in search for a way to feed their families, most farmers.

Many of these migrants are uneducated and penniless. They can do no more than to work for minimum wage at the dirtiest, most dangerous jobs that no city person is willing to do. They receive very little training before accepting high-risk jobs. Because of the Household Registration System, migrant workers are not entitled to subsidized housing, education, social security or medical benefits. It is not uncommon to see news about migrants sick from lack of clean food and water. Still, millions illegally migrate in search of a better living in large cities like Shanghai, because of the meager earnings in rural areas. The dirty work immigrants are forced to do from lack of better options have become a huge problem, not only in China, but also throughout the world.

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Statistics

 * By the end of 2007, the number of farmers turned migrant workers hit 4 million, making up 17.1% of Shanghai's population (municipal statistics bureau).
 * More than 10 million rural migrants move to cities in China every year
 * Over 11% of China's population (150 million people) are migrant workers

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More Organizations
[|Stepping Stones China] [|Hands On Shanghai (Adopt-A-School Program)] [|International Labour Organization] [|ActionLove China (Young Eagles Project)] [|Loving Heart Association (provides books and supplies for migrant children)]

=Related Articles=

Shanghai moves to close private schools for migrants
SHANGHAI: It seemed like an ordinary day earlier this month at the Jianying Hope School for migrant children here, with fidgety students settling down in their modest classrooms as their teachers prepared for the day's lessons.

Then the police arrived. At least 100 of them, according to witnesses, along with even larger numbers of security agents and local officials, who quickly filled the school's courtyard and cordoned off the site. The private elementary school, the teachers and their 2,000 students were informed, was being closed.

"They just showed up and closed the school while we were teaching," said one teacher, who asked that her name not be used, for fear of official retribution. "Children were crying, teachers were crying and people were very scared. You know in China that police are the most frightening thing."

The school closure has been widely criticized — even on the Web site of the state-run People's Daily. Yet, for all the professed shock, the heavy- handed operation was just one of scores of such incidents that have occurred in China's big eastern cities recently, as national and local authorities wrestle with a mandate that they provide a public education for the children of migrant workers, who until recently were barred from public schools in their parents' adopted cities. read more [|here].

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Education subsidy to kids of migrant workers in Shanghai
(Xinhua) Updated: 2007-12-25 09:58

SHANGHAI -- Over 3,900 children of migrant workers in four private schools in Shanghai have begun to enjoy the same education subsidy as those of permanent city residents - still an exceptional example in China.

The four schools for children of migrant workers in the Pudong New District of Shanghai have recently been covered in government-subsidized compulsory education, after the schools' status was recognized by the government as eligible corporate bodies for teaching.

Cao Xikang, director of the Social Development Bureau of the Pudong New District said that the district approves 1,900 yuan (US$256) in annual subsidy for children of permanent residents to complete schooling for their nine years of compulsory education. The policy has been extended to children of migrant workers this year. China has about 150 million migrant workers in cities. Children of the migrant workers are either left behind in rural homes or live with their parents in cities. However, those who study in cities do not enjoy the same tuition policy for schooling as city residents, as the policy is seen as a welfare benefit for permanent residents.

Pudong is an affluent district in Shanghai, China's financial center, where the local government's education expenditure is one of the highest in China. Read more [|here]

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More Articles
[|Shanghai's migrant population growing] [|Schooling vital for migrant children] [|Migrant workers to get equal rights]

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=Related Media= =Related Images=
 * [[image:http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/09Q1awOcsU9Xp/610x.jpg caption="Students watch as construction workers load tables onto a truck as demolition begins at the Jianying Hope School for poor migrant children in Shanghai, 17 January 2007. Chinese authorities have forcibly shut the school for around 2,000 children after the valuable land was marked for redevelopment and the school was deemed illegal as the teaching was not up to standard. China's expanding cities and coastal areas have proven a powerful economic lure to poor people from China's interior, with the Ministry of Agriculture estimating the nation's migrant worker population last year at 115 million.           AFP PHOTO/Mark RALSTON From Getty Images by AFP/Getty Images."]] ||
 * Students watch as construction workers load tables onto a truck as demolition begins at the Jianying Hope School for poor migrant children in Shanghai, 17 January 2007. Chinese authorities have forcibly shut the school for around 2,000 children after the valuable land was marked for redevelopment and the school was deemed illegal as the teaching was not up to standard. China's expanding cities and coastal areas have proven a powerful economic lure to poor people from China's interior, with the Ministry of Agriculture estimating the nation's migrant worker population last year at 115 million. AFP PHOTO/Mark RALSTON From Getty Images by AFP/Getty Images. ||

Attribution: Image: '610x' http://www.daylife.com/photo/09Q1awOcsU9Xp

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Attribution: Image: 'smPicture 10 with Caption 10 (Small)' [|http://www.paoc.org/upload/files4/images/smPicture%2010%20with%20Caption%2010%20(Small).JPG]

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 * [[image:http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0cbF0fw7Vf2CV/340x.jpg caption="A migrant worker breaks the concrete floor at a construction site in Beijing December 4, 2007. Officials have cautioned that population controls are being unravelled by the increased mobility of China's 150 million-odd migrant workers, who travel from poor rural areas to work in more affluent eastern cities. The influx of migrant workers into the capital had seen Beijing's population reach 17.4 million, Beijing News said in a separate report, only 600,000 short of a ceiling of 18 million the city government had set for 2020. From Reuters Pictures by REUTERS."]] ||
 * A migrant worker breaks the concrete floor at a construction site in Beijing December 4, 2007. Officials have cautioned that population controls are being unravelled by the increased mobility of China's 150 million-odd migrant workers, who travel from poor rural areas to work in more affluent eastern cities. The influx of migrant workers into the capital had seen Beijing's population reach 17.4 million, Beijing News said in a separate report, only 600,000 short of a ceiling of 18 million the city government had set for 2020. From Reuters Pictures by REUTERS. ||

Attribution: Image: '340x' http://www.daylife.com/photo/0cbF0fw7Vf2CV

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Translation: MIGRANT LABORERS [words in house] "The latent period for laborers like these is seven years. We'll make them leave in two." -EVIL SMILE- Attribution: Image: '28aug06china' [|http://www.csr-as] = = = =

Interview of Migrant Worker in Shanghai - Dream Corps UVa
media type="youtube" key="CcbZMU__X4s" height="295" width="480" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcbZMU__X4s

Children of China
media type="youtube" key="VFn5CF70A1g" height="344" width="425" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFn5CF70A1g&feature=PlayList&p=D10C7F1AD6803B11&index=1

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