13-year-old girl jumps to her death seeking father’s back pay

Jinzshou City, Hebei Province: On Monday, Jan. 19, 2015 at 1 p.m., a 13-year-old girl trying to help her father collect his unpaid wages jumped from the 16th floor of a new building her father had helped construct. She was sent to the Jinzhou Municipal Hospital for treatment. At 5 p.m. her family members confirmed that the girl had died.

According to eyewitnesses, the girl and her grandmother climbed to the 16th story of the building. Firefighters arrived and placed an inflated mattress below the two. (Copy editor’s note: In China, workers often threaten to leap from buildings or bridges when employers fail to pay them. Workers feel they have no other means of attracting attention to their plights.)

One peasant worker who was there to collect his salary said that the girl was their labor contractor’s daughter, a middle school student.

The girl’s grandmother was brought down from the building. When she learned that her granddaughter had jumped, she went into shock.

“We started working here in 2012, but never received payment. We’ve been seeking payment for a long time,” a peasant worker said. Neither the real estate developer nor the high-rise builder were willing to pay them. The peasant worker said they’d also gone to the relevant department of the local government, but gotten no assistance. Desperately they went to the construction site to ask for their payment. “No one knows when Little Meng and her grandmother climbed the building.”

At 4 p.m., Jizhou Hospital intensive care personnel confirmed that emergency assistance was being administered. At 5 p.m. her family members said that the girl had passed away. (Boxun Translation)

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