This is depressing. People need to be mighty unhappy to decide the only viable option is to take their own lives. All 7 would-be suiciders were peasant workers in Shenyang who were not paid for their work, an all too common crime in China.

SEVEN male workers, distressed over not receiving their pay and worried by their families’ plight, tried to commit group suicide in a case highlighting the widespread victimisation of migrant labourers in China, the state media has reported.

The seven took sleeping pills in their hostel last Saturday in this capital of north-eastern Liaoning province, said the Chinese Business Morning View.

The group suicide bid was discovered in time by a co-worker. The man, surnamed Liu, had returned to the hostel from a nearby town where he had gone to try to recoup the payments due to the construction labourers.

‘The minute I entered the workers’ quarters I found one of them lying on the floor while six others lay stiff in bed without blankets on.

‘I instantly knew something terrible had happened,’ recalled Mr Liu, who said he made 120 emergency phone calls to seek help.

Read the infuriating article to understand just how desperate these people are, and how common this practice of exploiting peasants and then not paying them is. I try to get inside of the minds of the people who promise them work and then walk away, pocketing the money for themselves. But I can’t. I don’t know how they can live with themselves.