Wei Zhili (危志立)

Wei Zhili (危志立) is a labour rights defender based in Guangzhou, Guangdong province in southern China. As a student, he developed an interest in and conducted research into the situation of labour rights in China, particularly the large number of workers who have contracted the lung disease pneumoconiosis due to toxic working conditions. After graduating from the School of Journalism and Communication at Guangzhou University in 2011, Wei Zhili worked at a labour rights group called Hand in Hand Workers Centre (“Shouqianshou gongyou huodongshi” in Chinese) in Shenzhen, which provided care and assistance to vulnerable workers. After the local authorities forced the Centre to close down, he co-founded the independent online labour rights news and advocacy platform iLabour (“Xinshengdai” in Chinese). As co-editor of the iLabour platform, Wei Zhili helped publish articles about labour rights under Chinese law, incidents of labour rights violations, and workers’ own experiences in labour rights advocacy. iLabour also provided labour rights consultations for workers on how to submit petitions to government officials and claim their rights under Chinese labour law and regulations.