For the first time in the history of the National People's Congress (NPC), migrant workers are to be elected as deputies.

The new deputies, representing the millions of rural citizens who travel from their homes to work in China's great cities, will improve representation, giving a voice to this important section of society.

The Standing Committee of each NPC organizes the election of deputies to its next session. In addition to determining the number of deputies from each region and the military, which has its own delegation, principles governing the elections ensure women and ethnic minorities are included in the congress.

Both farmers and industrial workers make up prominent groups in local and national legislatures, although the number of grassroots deputies has been dwindling in both groups.

But China's 150 million migrant workers currently have no representatives in the NPC.

Transient workers are left out because they do not fit into any of the regions or professions currently defined by the NPC.

Their residence registrations tend to show them as farmers, yet they no longer work in agriculture.

In the places they work, mostly in cities, they are outsiders who are often denied the welfare and benefits of residents, no matter how long they have been there.

While the migrants have to swallow the injustice of discrimination, harsh working conditions and unfair pay, their children often have difficulty getting into public schools in the cities they move to.

Their woes have incited calls to improve their conditions. But their own voices are often left unheard as they are absent from local and national legislatures.

As the supreme organ of China's government, the NPC has an obligation to provide a platform for such a big part of society and the best way is to let them have their own say in the Great Hall of the People.

(China Daily 03/12/2007 page4)