Department set up to safeguard rights of migrant workers

China has set up a special department to safeguard the rights of the country's millions of migrant workers.

The goal of the unit, formed under the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, is to achieve social harmony, China Daily writes.

The department will attend to matters regarding the wages, job contracts, training, and social security of the workers.

"Our mission is to carry on the government's unremitting efforts to protect the legal rights of migrant workers," China Daily quotes Wang Zhihong, director of the new department, as saying.

The new department has been deemed a "landmark" in the government's efforts to improve the situation of the country's 150 million migrant workers.

Most migrant workers from China's rural areas face unfair treatment in cities, Liu Junsheng, a researcher with the labor-wage institute affiliated to the ministry, told China Daily.

Under the current practice, migrant workers cannot register the city they work in as their place of residence and therefore do not have access to the local welfare services.

One of the most pressing problems the new department should tackle is the household registration (hukou) issue, says Xie Ying, a migrant coordinator from Bazhong city in Sichuan province.