A 12-year-old Chinese girl has taken up garbage collection as a job to support her parents, both of whom are cancer patients.
Every day, Xiao Sheng carries 23 containers of waste in Hefei, capital of east China’s Anhui province, Xinhua reported. The containers weigh at least 50 kg each and the job is tiring, even for adults. The girl has been doing this job for over a year and is paid 800 yuan (around $130) a month.
The wages barely cover the basic needs of her family of four, including her father, stepmother and a half brother, who is only a year old. Xiao's 56-year-old father was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2011, when she was in the fifth grade.
She took over her father's job, spending two hours carrying garbage after school hours before rushing home to help her stepmother with household chores. But towards the end of last year, her stepmother came down with anal cancer. Xiao took up all the housework from then on.
Published 07 February 2013, 18:55 IST