‘Work widows’ suffer in silence
Wives of migrant workers are ‘lonely and depressed’, warn experts ahead of Women’s Day.
Hu Yongqi in Pingliang, Gansu, and Peng Yining in Beijing report.
Chairman Mao famously said in the 1960s that women hold up half the sky. Fivedecades on, many of them are instead struggling to hold down the fort in towns andvillages across China.
As men leave the countryside in search of better opportunities in large cities, analystssay the wives they often leave behind are among the most vulnerable members of society.
The number of “work widows” - so called because they lose their migrant workerhusbands for long periods of the year - has already hit about 20 million, according toexperts. They warn that the majority of these women experience severe depression andloneliness, as well as struggle because of their poor education levels.
As the world celebrates the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day onMarch 8, governments at all levels are being urged to offer more help to ease the burden.
For almost 13 years, Gao Zhuan, 37, has been raising her two children by herselfin Damaigou village, near Pingliang, Gansu province. Her husband, Yue Shuangbao,has spent most of that time digging coal more than 1,000 km away at a mine in InnerMongolia.
To earn money from the family’s land, Gao must not only do her work but herhusband’s, too. She sows wheat every spring, and because Gansu has a chronic watershortage - it got only 450 mm of rain in 2008, 70 percent of the national average - sheregularly has to carry two large buckets of water to irrigate them. Then, every autumn, shehauls a cart laden with 100 kg of grain back to her home.
Standing only 1.5 m tall, she is deceptively strong, but 13 years of hard labor havetaken their toll. Her hands have large calluses after years of weaving carpets to make extramoney.
“My husband has to work away to make enough money to send our children toschool. He cannot do that here,” said Gao, a shy woman who explained she is wary oftalking to people in case it causes a dispute and her husband is not around to protect her.
Yue, who earns about 1,500 yuan (220) a month as a miner, returns home just onceor twice a year. He is only allowed time off at Spring Festival or if the mine is not busy.
Although Yue Xu, their son, is only 15 and still receives free, compulsory education,the couple pay out more than 2,000 yuan a semester in tuition fees for their daughter YueJuan, 18.
More than 100 residents leave Damaigou to find work in South China’s Guangdongprovince every year. The village comprises 19 families and each includes at least one womanwho is married to a migrant worker, said locals.
Yue said his biggest fear is for the security of his wife and children. He recalled that,in 2006, while he was in Baotou, a thief broke into their home. Although he did not stealanything - their only electrical device is a 10-year-old television set - he said it scaredhis family. “My wife and Yue Xu found footprints left by the thief on a white wall. Theywere terrified,” he said.
Almost every family in Damaigou now has a dog that barks when strangers approach,he said.
More than 20 percent of all married women in Northwest China - about 100,000 -are “work widows”, according to a survey by Pingliang Women’s Federation in late 2009.
“Women in rural areas generally already have a low standard of living but for theseleft-behind women it is even worse,” said Jiang Yongping, a senior researcher for thewomen’s studies institute of the All-China Women’s Federation. “The labor is the biggestburden, but they also suffer loneliness and depression due to economic pressures.
“They have to take care of their children, elders and farms. And they must do it alone.
After marriage they don’t get a better life, they get the opposite.”
The situation is one of the greatest social problems facing the countryside, warned YeJingzhong, a professor in social development at China Agricultural University in Beijing,who in 2008 completed a two-year survey of left-behind women in Anhui, Henan, Hunan,Jiangxi and Sichuan provinces.
“The ultimate goal for left-behind women is to educate their children. About 75percent stay at home to help their children - most aged from 7 to 16 - with theirschooling,” he said.
However, most “work widows” themselves are poorly educated, while some are evenilliterate, say experts.
Gao in Damaigou never attended school because her father could not afford it, shesaid. She can read and write only a handful of Chinese characters and can do only verysimple calculations. “My children have to do their homework all by themselves. I can’tteach them at all,” she said.
Yue Xu, her son, said: “I really need guidance but I can’t ask my mother. I know myscores are not good enough. All I can do is try to work harder.” The teenager added that heplans to get a job like his father’s if he fails to get into college.
Liu Xiaoling, 24, lives with her 18-month-old son and mother-in-law in Huangweitown, Anhui province. She used to work in the same factory in Shenzhen, an industrialhub in Guangdong province, with her husband Du Ping, 28, but had to return home in2008 when work dried up due to the financial crisis.
Several ambitious projects to help “work widows” in Gansu were launched inNovember 2009 by the provincial women’s federation. They plan to open 30 study roomsacross in Pingliang by April, where women can meet friends and learn new skills.
Women in Zhuanglang county can now chat with their husbands online usingwebcams thanks to a project funded by the federation.
Village chiefs in nearby Zaolin, Chongxin county, have built a reading room andrecreation room, both 80 square meters, while women are also given legal advice andpsychological counseling to help them cope with life without their husbands.
However, local governments and women’s federations have been urged by experts todo more to protect this vulnerable section of society.