V. Protection of Women and Children's
Rights
Sustained efforts have been made to promote and
effectively protect Chinese women's rights in the political, economic, social,
educational, marital, domestic and other spheres. The extent of Chinese women's
involvement in the management of state and social affairs has markedly increased. The
ratios of women deputies to the Ninth NPC and women members on the CPPCC Ninth National
Committee have risen by 0.8 and 2 percentage points, respectively, as compared with the
NPC and CPPCC National Committee of the last terms. At present, women civil servants
account for one third of the country's total. Women hold leading posts in the Party
committees and governments of 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, an
increase of 46.47 percent over the figure five years ago. In the 668 cities of China,
there are 463 women mayors and vice-mayors. Among the leaders of the federations of trade
unions of each province, municipality and autonomous region, there are one to two
chairwomen or vice-chairwomen.
The number of employed women has continuously grown, and their work involvement has become
rational. By October 2000, the number of women employees had reached 330 million,
accounting for 46.7 percent of the total number of employees in China. The employed women
have tended to shift to tertiary industry from conventional industries. The ratio of women
engaged in agriculture, and the extractive, manufacturing and building industries is
declining, while the ratio in culture, education, science and technology, health care,
finance, insurance, transportation, posts and telecommunications, state organs, mass
organizations and other sectors, is increasing. Such a shift facilitates the comprehensive
development of women in economic activities, since it is more suited to women's
physiological characteristics. In 2000, a total of well over 40 million women in China's
rural areas received agricultural high-tech training, five of whom won the "Prize for
Women's Creativity in Rural Life" of the Women's World Summit Foundation.
Women's educational level has risen further. According to statistics, in recent years both
the incremental extent of the length of education enjoyed by women above the age of 15 and
the declining extent of their illiteracy rate are larger than men's, and the gap in the
educational levels of the two sexes is further narrowing. In 2000, the average length of
education enjoyed by women exceeded 6.5 years, and the length gap between adult men and
women in this regard narrowed from 1.7 years in 1995 to less than 1.5 years. In the past
few years, China has helped nearly three million illiterates each year to learn how to
read and write, among whom 65 percent were women. By the end of 1999, the illiteracy rate
of adult women was 21.6 percent, and the illiteracy rate of women between 15 and 45 years
old was 7.2 percent. In the year 2000, the ratio of primary school attendance for girls
throughout China reached 99.07 percent, almost equal to the 99.14 percent for boys. Female
students in kindergartens, primary schools, vocational secondary schools, regular
secondary schools, secondary normal schools, secondary technical schools and regular
institutions of higher learning made up 46.08 percent, 47. 60 percent, 47.17 percent,
46.17 percent, 67.49 percent, 54.63 percent and 40.98 percent of the total number of
students attending schools of the same kind, respectively. Among the nation 's
professionals, more than 110 million were women, constituting 40.6 percent of the total,
or an increase of 14.8 percent over 1995. Among those female professionals, 3.263 million
and 436,000 have professional titles of middle and senior ranks, respectively.
Furthermore, currently there are 70 female academicians at the Chinese Academy of Sciences
and Chinese Academy of Engineering, making up 6 percent of the total, which is a fairly
high ratio internationally.
Women's health conditions have constantly improved. In 2000, there were 609 hospitals
specially for women and children, employing 72,000 medical personnel, and 2,598 clinics
for women and children, employing 75,000 medical personnel. By 1999, the ratio of health
care for pregnant and puerperal women throughout the country had exceeded 86 percent, and
95.4 percent of rural women had access to the modern method of midwifery. The mortality
rate of pregnant women and women in labor dropped to 56.2 per 100, 000 from 61.9 per
100,000 in 1995. Beginning in 2000, the Chinese government has practiced a two-year
special plan in the western region and impoverished rural areas with 200 million yuan
earmarked to combat the maternal mortality rate and eliminate trismus nascentium. In
October 2000, the China Poverty Relief Fund formally started the Strategic Plan of
"Action 120 for the Safety of Mother and Baby," committing itself in
establishing health and first-aid organs for women and children at the county, township
and village levels in the poverty-stricken areas in the six provinces and one municipality
in the central and western parts of China, to improve the health care of poor mothers and
babies, and eliminating the mortality rate of babies, pregnant women and women in labor.
An estimated 32 million yuan is to go to this 10-year campaign.
The state has adopted measures to effectively protect women's rights against infringement.
To curb domestic violence, bigamy and taking concubines more effectively, perfect the
family property system and protect women's rights in marriage and the family against
infringement, the NPC mobilized people of various circles to conduct serious research for
the revision of the Marriage Law, and publicized the draft amendments to the Marriage Law
in January 2001 for public discussions. So far, the people's congresses and governments at
all levels have formulated over 20 local regulations and policies for preventing and
curbing domestic violence. By the end of October 2000, 13 provinces and 47 prefectures,
cities and counties throughout the country had established the system of joint conference
for protecting women's rights, attended by many departments, to regularly coordinate,
supervise and examine the work of protecting women's rights and interests. The court
system has set up 544 collegiate panels for safeguarding the rights and interests of women
and children, employing 4,266 full-time cadres from women's organizations as people's
assessors to directly participate in the trial of cases involving women's rights and
interests. Between April and July 2000, the public security organs launched a nationwide
movement to crack down on crimes of abducting and trafficking in women and children, in
accordance with the law, and uncovered some 20,000 such cases, which involved 7,600
criminal gangs, saving or making proper arrangements for the resettlement of a large
number of women and children who had been abducted and sold.
The rights of children have been effectively protected. China has constantly upheld the
prophylactic immunization filing system for children to prevent and control pneumonia,
diarrhea, rickets and iron-deficiency anemia. China has also conducted a baby- friendly
campaign, advocated breast feeding, built baby-friendly hospitals, provided health care
services such as children's nutrition guide, monitoring of children's growth, examination
of newborn infant diseases, and preschool education for children, increasingly improving
children's growth level and nutrition conditions. In 2000, child mortality dropped by one
third as compared with 1990, and the rate of malnutrition among children dropped by 50
percent. To promote the healthy development of children, the Program for the Safe and
Healthy Development of Chinese Children was initiated in October 2000. The basic tasks of
this program are, through a series of publicity activities and providing training and
services, to create a favorable social environment for the sound development of children,
help children to stay away from dropout, disease, injury and crime, and effectively
protect the rights and interests of children. By the end of 1999, the "Hope
Project" had received a total of 1.84 billion yuan in donations, with which it had
helped the construction of 7,812 "Hope" primary schools and aided 2.3 million
dropouts. In 2000, the Children's Foundation of China raised some 81 million yuan to
support the implementation of the "Spring Buds Program," helping a total of 1.05
million girl dropouts return to school.