(China Daily)
Updated: 2007-11-20 07:25

It would have been unimaginable to think that one day migrants or farmer-turned workers would have their own representatives to voice their concerns over State affairs and their interests to legislative bodies when they left their villages in the early 1980s to do menial jobs in the urban areas.

It has now become a reality. Four were elected deputies to the Guangdong Provincial People's Congress last week although they are not yet registered as permanent local residents. Shenyang Municipal People's Congress in northeastern Liaoning Province also had its first deputy from its more than 1 million farmer-turned workers in the same week.

About 200 million farmer-turned workers nationwide have become an important working force in the urbanization process, and for the country to realize its goal of building a better-off society.

In an act adopted early this year in the National People's Congress session (NPC) for the election of deputies to the NPC that will be held early next year, a clause says that deputies should be elected from farmer-turned workers in those constituencies where such workers are relatively concentrated.

Undoubtedly it has become a must on the agenda of governments at various levels to better protect the interests and rights of these workers. And the improvement of their wellbeing has a bearing on the prospect of building a harmonious society.

In addition, they deserve better living and working conditions and a higher social status for their contributions to the country's urbanization and impressive economic growth.

Deputies of the People's Congress should extensively represent people of different social status as required by its nature. Accounting for almost one-sixth of the total population, farmer-turned workers have every reason to have their deputies elected to local and national legislative bodies.

Their election sends a message that the NPC is paying due attention to the question of how it can represent as extensively as possible the interests and rights of people from different social groups.

However, their election does not mean that conditions for such workers will soon improve. But we see a ray of hope from their election that the day will not be too far away.

(China Daily 11/20/2007 page10)