Report: China's Migrants Face Abuse

Workers from China's vast rural hinterland are often forced to work overtime and are fined for infractions such as being late or not meeting production quotas, the London-based rights group said.

Pay is also routinely withheld to keep migrants from changing jobs, a practice that has helped keep wages down despite rising demand for workers and annual economic growth of more than 10 percent, the report said.

"China's so-called economic 'miracle' comes at a terrible human cost - rural migrants living in the cities experience some of the worst abuse in the work place," Catherine Baber, Amnesty's deputy Asia Pacific director, said in a statement accompanying the 42-page report.

Asked to comment on the report, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang acknowledged workers' rights were abused "in some places in China."

But Qin said Amnesty's claim that China's economic growth had come at the cost of human rights was "biased and baseless" and said the government was working to eradicate abuses.

Migrants usually perform the lowest-paid and most dangerous jobs in factories and on construction sites. The widespread lack of labor contracts leaves them with little legal recourse in disputes with employers, the report said.

Amnesty said migrants are heavily victimized by residency restrictions that tie a person to their place of birth. While migrants are allowed to apply for temporary residency, they must pay extra for schooling and rarely receive insurance or access to subsidized housing, the report said.

That system "provides a regulatory and administrative foundation for discrimination against internal migrant workers," Baber said.

Chinese officials and legislators say they are debating how best to overhaul the residency system but no timetable has been put forward for replacing the current model.