The Chinese government helped migrant construction workers retrieve 33.2 billion yuan of defaulted wage in 2004, says a white paper on China's human rights progress in 2004 issued by the Information Office of the State Council on Wednesday.

The white paper says the government attaches great importance to the protection of the farmers' legitimate rights and interests.

In 2004, the government examined compensation for and settlement of farmers whose collectively-owned lands had been requisitioned, and paid defaulted compensation for land requisition totaling 14.77 billion yuan.

The government sorted out and annulled discriminative regulations and unreasonable restrictions on farmers seeking employment in urban areas, and continued to improve protection of the legitimate rights and interests of migrant workers from rural areas, requiring that their children should enjoy equal rights to compulsory education with local children and forbidding arbitrary collection of fees from them.

The government also improved job services for migrant workers, provided them with good consultation services, strengthened their training for employment, further solved their problem of defaulted wages, reinforced the management of labor contracts as well as procuratorial work and law enforcement concerning labor security.

The government handled promptly labor dispute cases, encouraged trade unions to protect migrant workers' rights and interests according to law, and provided them with industrial injury insurance.

In 2004, the "Provisional Measures for the Management of Payment of Wages to Migrant Construction Workers from Rural Areas" was formulated, which provided for an overall clear-up of defaults on payment of project fees as well as wages of migrant workers from rural areas.