Female migrant workers in Harbin frequently face violations of their working rights, according to a survey by the Women's Federation of Harbin.

There are more than 650,000 migrant workers flowing into the city in Heilongjiang Province annually, and women make up 35 percent of their number.

"The legal rights of women migrant workers are often and easily violated at present," Tao Zengtian, director of the Harbin Xincheng Legal Affairs Office, told China Daily.

"Their ignorance of basic legal knowledge and comparably low education level put them in a vulnerable position."

A woman surnamed Song came to work as a hairdresser in a beauty salon in Harbin from her hometown Lanxi shortly after Spring Festival.

One of her customers developed an allergic reaction to a treatment she had administered, and demanded compensation from the salon.

Song was blamed by her boss and fired with a deduction of a month's salary.

Elsewhere in Harbin, 22-year-old Li, a waitress in a hotel, resigned because of frequent harassment from her boss.

"These two are just typical cases of the situation of the women migrant workers," said Tao.

Among the 900 female migrant workers surveyed, nearly 80 per cent were educated to junior middle school level or below.

"Many of them do not have any legal labor documents with their employers and just work under an oral agreement," Tao said.

Nearly 60 percent surveyed said they did not have any kind of labor documents.

"Some employers took advantage of their anxiety to get a job and employ them under oral agreements, but the employers could optionally change the agreement or deny its existence," said He Shuyan, a pollster from the Women's Federation.

"Payment default, illegal overtime working and a general lack of social insurance are the main problems reflected in the survey."

She recalls that just before Spring Festival, the federation received complaints from three female migrant workers whose boss had refused to pay them for three months of work in a hotel.

As no written labor document was signed, the federation contacted the Harbin Municipal Labor Bureau at once.

After several investigations, the boss finally agreed to pay them under pressure from the Labor Bureau.

"The three women were lucky to have their salaries, but not all of the women migrant workers are that fortunate," He said.

The Women's Federation recently teamed up with two local legal affairs offices to open two service centers to provide free legal consultation for female migrant workers. Three hotlines have been set up.

"We hope more and more women migrant workers will take up the weapon of law to protect their legal rights through our promotion," said Chen Aihua, vice president of the Women's Federation.

"We are also craving a complete and effective labor surveillance system to build up a better environment for the migrant laborers," she said.

(China Daily March 8, 2005)