Ai Qin, a young Chinese girl from Fujian, borrows $25,000 to pay the Snakehead gang to smuggle her into the UK so she can support her son and family back in China. Once in the UK, she becomes another one of three million migrant workers that are the bedrock of its food supply chain, construction and hospitality industries. She lives with fifteen other Chinese in a two-bedroom suburban house. With an illegally forged work permit, she prepares food for British supermarkets. In their search for better paying jobs to repay their debts, they end up cockling in Morecambe Bay at night. On February 5th 2004, twenty-three Chinese drowned in Morecambe. Their families in China are still paying off their debts.