Scared and in pain, victims face bleak future

'What will our future be like?' 21-year-old Yu Aifei asked. 'Will the disease have any long-term effects?'

The Hunan woman wanted to know if she could still have children.

'Four of the girls were pregnant in the factory. None of their children survived. One had a miscarriage,' she said. The babies of the other three women died shortly after being born.

'We are so scared. None of us are married,' she said.

She is one of three women who are being treated in Guangzhou for benzene poisoning after working at Shenzhen Nitto Denko Electronics, a large Japanese-backed factory.

'We used a solution to clean the digital displays. We were told later that the liquid contained benzene,' said Ms Yu.