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Clara Li

Nineteen-year-old Tang Wenyan lies on a Guangzhou hospital bed, out of breath after being helped to the toilet. She is 1.6 metres tall and weighs only 25kg.

She is paralysed and can barely use her hands. Twelve other women who used to work for the Anjia Shoe Factory in Dongguan are in the same hospital.

All are suffering the effects of benzene poisoning.

The Anjia women's story made national headlines last week after the company tracked down the ill migrant workers and sent them to Guangdong Occupational Disease Treatment Centre in Guangzhou.

The women are from Guizhou, Henan, Sichuan and Hubei provinces.

The case has raised awareness of the mainland's poor record on occupational health and the lack of government supervision of workplaces.

A letter sent to the Guangdong Women's Federation on June 25 triggered the investigation. 'The workers who worked on the viscose assembly line are exposed to stinky glue every day,' it said.

'The glue is toxic. If humans are exposed to it for a long period of time their limbs slowly start to become numb, then the hands and feet swell. Then you cannot work so you have to go home. Most who returned home have become paralysed and are dying,' the letter said. More than 50 people employed at the Taiwan-owned shoe factory in the past 10 years may have been affected, officials said. Some 39 former workers have still not been located.

Two weeks ago, the hospital sent a team of nine doctors to the factory to test the assembly line workers for benzene poisoning.

This is not the first time that large-scale benzene poisoning has made the headlines.

Six women died from exposure to benzene at a shoe factory in Hebei province in February and 76 workers were affected in a factory in Shenzhen as early as 1996.

But it is certainly the first occupational health case to have received such media attention.

It follows Beijing's introduction of a new law on May 1 on the prevention and treatment of work-related illnesses.

Under the law, employers are held accountable for workplace safety and are legally bound to provide financial support and treatment to those who suffer from work-related illnesses and injuries.

Huang Hanlin, president of the Guangdong hospital, said the incident was far from being an isolated case, as work-related illness was widespread.

According to statistics in the state media, more than 10 million people have been exposed to occupational disease hazards nationwide since 1989. The problem has become more serious in Guangdong because of its fast-developing industrial economy. Before the 1990s, 70 per cent of work-related illnesses recorded were those of poisoning from heavy metals. But last year, the rate of poisoning from chemical substances had risen from 2.5 per cent in the 1980s to 80 per cent.

Employers and employees still seem to know little about the new Occupational Disease Law.

Anjia's Taiwanese general manager Zhou Youjun said he had not heard of the law. He also said the workers were poisoned because they refused to wear protective gloves and masks that the factory provided.

But the women said they were never given gloves or masks, nor were they informed of the danger of using glue containing benzene. An inspection of the factory premises found that there was no ventilation system nor any windows in the workshop. There was also no sign warning workers of the potential health hazards.

Mr Zhou paid for the transport for the women to return to Guangdong for treatment and has pledged to put aside one million yuan (HK$940,000) in a special fund for the treatment of the sick workers. He has also promised a 200,000 yuan donation to the Guangdong Women's Federation to help publicise the new law.

One element that may have spurred Mr Zhou and the company to offer money was the cancellation of a few large orders from the US.



Poisoned workers merely the tip of an iceberg