BEIJING -- Hu Changjun was desperate to escape the poverty trap in Wuxi County in southwest China's Sichuan Province. So she couldn't believe her luck when a fellow villager named Changyan offered her work at a joint-venture factory in distant Beijing. "A joint venture means a foreign company, where the work is easy and the pay is good," explained Changyan.
Even when the reality proved to be 16-hour days, seven days a week, washing and drying vegetables for only 300 yuan a month, Hu was still keen to seize her urban dream. But less than a year after starting work, her right arm was caught in an industrial drier unequipped with safety mechanisms, deforming her for life. She was just 13 years old.
Throughout China, millions of under-age workers like Hu endure slave-like and hazardous conditions toiling long hours for low pay. Many are migrants from the countryside, exploited in China's headlong rush to capitalism. Labor laws prohibit employers from hiring workers under 16 years old, yet the benefits far outweigh the risk of incurring fines of between 3,000 and 5,000 yuan.