Rural migrant workers to enter China´s top legislature

Source: Xinhuanet | 03-08-2007 13:46

BEIJING, March 8 (Xinhua) -- China's hundreds of millions of rural migrant workers will have their own representatives seated in the national parliament if a draft resolution on lawmaker election for next year's National People's Congress (NPC) is approved by legislators at the ongoing 10th NPC annual session.

The draft resolution on deputy election for the 11th NPC was submitted to lawmakers for deliberation on Thursday, stipulating that provinces and municipalities with a large population of rural migrant workers should have an NPC deputy quota for them.

"China's migrant laborer population has become larger and is growing into one of the mainstays of the country's working force. They should have a number of lawmakers to represent their rights and interests," said Sheng Huaren, vice chairman of the NPC Standing Committee when making an explanation on the draft resolution to about 3,000 legislators.

Sources with the NPC Standing Committee said in the current NPC or the previous terms, no deputy was elected as a migrant worker.

The draft resolution also proposed an increase of lawmakers from farmers and industrial workers, saying that the NPC deputy number from these groups is dropping in recent years.

"NPC deputies must have a wide representation which is a fundamental requirement of the NPC system and an aspect of the socialist democracy," Sheng said.

China has about 200 million migrant workers, of which more than 120 million work in cities and the remainder work in towns. Official figures show 13 million farmers will become migrant workers each year if China reaches the urbanization target of 56 percent.

Editor:Du Xiaodan