The Chinese are mostly from the impoverished coastal province of Fujian and Rotterdam is their port of entry

The Chinese are mostly from the impoverished coastal province of Fujian, and Rotterdam is their port of entry. European law agencies estimate the business to be worth about £8.5bn a year. The Americans claim it is closer to double that – about $30bn worldwide.As the authorities have tried to stem the flow, the traffickers have found different, more ingenious and increasingly risky routes. Two weeks ago, in the middle of some of worst of the mayhem in Iraq, 20 Chinese men from Fujian turned up in Fallujah en route to Europe. They were promptly kidnapped but then released by the Iraqi resistance, who seemed utterly perplexed by the turn of events.According to police and customs sources in Britain and Holland, one of the most exotic and powerful figures in the Chinese people-smuggling game is Jing Ping Chen, better known as Little Sister Ping – 5ft 1in tall, waif thin, with a reputation frightening even in this brutal world. She is thoughtto have been responsible for smuggling between 150,000 and 175,000 people, including the Dover shipment, earning about £12m, before her imprisonment last year.Sister Ping arrived in Rotterdam from Fujian in 1997, and started working in Chinatown. Soon, she met and became the lover of a Chinese man called Peter, one of the leaders of the city’s 14K Triad gang.Ping is said to have strong connections in the Communist Party hierarchy in Fujian, which proved of immense value to Peter and his colleagues, allowing the snakeheads who lead the groups of migrants to obtain legitimate exit visas so that illegal immigrants could leave China by air.With her contacts in China and in the Triads, Sister Ping decided to set up her own organisation Her ambitions lay well beyond Rotterdam.

Now the EU may give recognition to a host of other tongues from Catalan to Welsh, stirring fierce passions. The European Union already has 20 official languages and faces a bill for translation and interpretation of €1bn (£665m) a year. “I’ve heard of other people complaining and then losing their jobs.”The money isn’t good but it was worse when I packed tights for another company in the 1980s.”. “There are periods in the summer when things are quiet and I don’t work because there are no tights to pack but other than that, I never take holidays. I couldn’t afford to.”Her employers, a family-run company,told her that they could not increase her pay because they are unable to sell the products for more money.”I couldn’t complain because I need to keep working,” she said. Frequently working late at night, she earns 20p for every two dozen pairs of tights she sorts, folds, boxes and bar codes with stickers.

She vaguely remembers signing “some piece of paper” when she began working for the company eight years ago, but her employment rights are minimal.”We don’t get anything like maternity pay or paid holiday,” said Mrs Reid, who lives with her husband and two of their four children. The centre’s second phase will take several more years, but is well under way. “I’ve got to a stage with the museum where I can leave in a very confident state about what is going to happen,” he said.. Parveen starts work as soon as she has packed off her four young children to school.

When they return, she stops to make their evening meal, puts them to bed, clears up, and continues her work late into the night. Her work is seen in leading supermarkets and high street retailers, who are among employers supplied with products from workers being denied basic working rights, the charity Oxfam said.Some workers were paid as little as 29p an hour, two-thirds were refused paid holiday leave, and redundancy pay, maternity leave and health and safety checks were rare. Workers who complained were also frequently dismissed, said the report, to which the TUC and the National Group on Homeworking contributed.They urge the Government to adhere to the International Convention on Homework, the standards established by the International Labour Organisation. These include basic employment rights, ranging from maternity leave to redundancy pay. The report also calls for stronger penalties for companies who fail to pay the minimum wage.”Exploitation can include failure to pay the national minimum wage, forced overtime, no sick pay, holiday pay or maternity pay,” said Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC “Legislation on this area of the labour market is weak. The Government needs to take stronger measures to enforce payment.”‘I can’t complain because I need to keep working’For Karen Reid, 45, working from home is her only option if she is to continue caring for her elderly parents who require daily visits.But she pays a price for the luxury of being able to pack boxes full of tights for high-street stores and leading supermarkets at her Leeds home – namely her wages.Mrs Reid, whose name has been changed, earns little more than £2 an hour for working eight-hour days, seven days a week.