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A group of 100 mothers from China joined forces Monday to fight a new law banning them from working in the city-state.

``Why is there discrimination against mothers,'' said Liu Xueqin, 50, a mother of a 15-year-old girl who has been living in Singapore for over a year. ``I am educated and I should be allowed to work if there is work.''

Liu and her compatriots met with several Chinese embassy officials Monday to seek help in overturning the law which bans foreign mothers who accompany their school-going children to Singapore from working.

``All the money I brought over from China is almost gone. How am I going to survive here if I cannot work?'' said Liu, of China's northeastern Liaoning province.

Liu said she spent most of her family's life savings of around 20 million yuan (US$2,500) so her daughter could study here.

In an e-mail reply to questions from The Associated Press, Singapore's Ministry of Manpower said they could no longer allow the foreign mothers to work ``given the current employment situation.''

``The liberal work privileges enjoyed by the foreign mothers were given at a time when the economy was expanding fast and job vacancies increasing,'' the ministry said in a statement.

Mothers are still allowed to remain in the country on a social visit pass as long as their children are in school, it said.

The tiny, wealthy city-state is mired in its worst economic slump since independence in 1965, with a record unemployment level close to 5 percent.

The economy has been severely battered by the region-wide severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak, the war in Iraq and increasing competition from China and India.

The mothers gathered outside the embassy gates around 0200GMT and entered en masse, said Pei Xingjie, another mother who turned up in support.

``My daughter was one of the top students in China, but I brought her over here to study English and give her the best education possible,'' said Pei, the mother of a 15-year-old girl.

An agency in China told her that all she needed was enough money to last her two to three months, as it would ``be easy to find a job here.''

Many foreigners are hired as beauticians, masseurs, Mandarin tuition teachers, cleaners and cooks _ jobs generally shunned by Singaporeans.

``I have a factory job now, but once that permit is not renewed then I have nothing left,'' said Pei.

There are an estimated 21,000 foreign students in public schools here. Singapore is actively attempting to remake itself into a global education center.

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