As of the end of March, nearly 150,000 rural migrant workers had sought aid from designated law institutes, the China Legal Aid Foundation said on Monday.

Legal aid institutes handled 5,148 lawsuits filed by migrant workers, which involved 12,457 such workers, the foundation told a conference on promoting legal aid work for rural migrant workers.

These institutes have launched law awareness campaigns among migrant workers and distributed brochures encouraging them to seek legal aid to protect their rights, and these activities have benefited more than 100,000 people, according to the foundation.

The first legal aid institutes especially for migrant workers were set up in six provinces in September 2006.

Financed by the Belgian government, such institutes were established in another 15 provinces in early 2007.

There are an estimated 200 million migrant workers in China.

(Xinhua News Agency April 29, 2008)