Workers using fashion to pull themselves from poverty

At a factory in Suining county, Jiangsu province, workers busily create women's fashion accessories, meticulously manipulating needles, stringing colorful beads, attaching tiny ornaments to hairpins or adding artificial pearls to earrings. The work requires patience and dexterity - and it isn't easy, even with two healthy hands.

Wei Lixia, 56, however, works with just one hand. The nerves of her left hand were damaged in a car accident 30 years ago, and she's been forced to adapt. Some of her fingers don't work. At the factory, she earns 40 yuan ($5.60) a day and counts herself lucky.

Wei is one of some 100,000 women in Liji township who not long ago could earn little to nothing. Now, from humble beginnings in the 1980s, Liji's accessories industry brings in revenue of around 7 billion yuan annually.