III. Monitoring Compliance With Human Rights

III(f) STATUS OF WOMEN

Laws and Institutions | Trafficking of Women and Girls | Gender Disparities

FINDINGS

• The Chinese Constitution and laws provide for the equal rights of women, and a network of women's groups advocate to protect women's rights. Such groups focus on providing education, protection, and legal assistance to women.
• Chinese women have fewer employment opportunities than men, and their educational levels fall below those of men, but the government has acknowledged these gender discrepancies and is taking steps to promote women's interests. Chinese women face increasing risks from HIV/AIDS as the disease moves from high-risk groups dominated by men into the general population.
• Trafficking of women and children in China remains pervasive despite government efforts to build a body of domestic law to address the problem. China's population control policies exacerbate the trafficking problem. China's poorest families, who often cannot afford to pay the coercive fines that the government assesses when it discovers an extra child, often sell or give infants, particularly female infants, to traffickers.

Laws and Institutions

The Chinese Constitution and laws provide for the equal rights of women. Article 48 of the Constitution declares that women are equal to men, and names women as a "vulnerable social group" requiring special protection. As a result, the government has passed a substantial body of protective legislation, particularly in the area of labor law and regulation. A U.S. scholar of women's issues in China argues that protective regulations can work against women's interests, however, since they may make employing women more expensive for employers and give managers an incentive to lay off women first.¹ The Labor Insurance Regulations provide for the retirement of women at a younger age than men. Some women in China have urged that the retirement ages of men and women should be made the same because the regulations put women at a disadvantage by reducing women's effective working lives for the purposes of wages and seniority.²

The National People's Congress (NPC) enacted the Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests (LPWRI) in 1992 to "protect women's lawful rights and interests, and promote equality between men and women."³ The 1992 law provided for government action to protect women but did not permit women to assert their own rights.⁴ In August 2005, the NPC Standing Committee passed amendments to the LPWRI, including stronger provisions requiring government entities at all levels to take action against abuse of women's rights and giving women assistance to assert their rights in court.⁵ The amended law, to take effect in December 2005, also outlaws sexual harassment, giving the victim the right to complain to her employer, seek punishment by the police under administrative punishment regulations, and bring a civil suit for damages.⁶ Passage of the amendments capped a month of high-level attention to women, including the release of a white paper on gender equality,⁷ an exhibition on women's progress,⁸ and a conference commemorating the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women.⁹

Central government institutions that focus on women and children, such as the State Council Working Committee on Women and Children¹⁰ and the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF),¹¹ have been advocates for legal reform in the areas of domestic violence, sexual harassment, and women's education.¹² The Working Committee recently developed the State Council's Ten-Year Program for the Development of Chinese Women (2001–2010), which focuses government attention on eight areas, including women's education, health, and participation in political and economic life.¹³ As a Party organization, however, the ACWF is not able to effectively promote women's interests when countervailing Party interests intervene. For example, the ACWF has been silent about the abuses of Chinese government population control policies and remains complicit in coercive enforcement of birth limits.¹⁴

A number of independent women's NGOs have existed since the early 1990s and a new women's movement seems to be growing. Several Chinese women's organizations were founded in conjunction with the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing, including the Center for Women's Law Studies and Legal Services at Beijing University, and the Maple Women's Psychological Consulting Center. In April 2005, several Chinese women leaders jointly founded the advocacy project Women's Watch—China.¹⁵

Trafficking of Women and Girls

Trafficking of women and children in China remains pervasive. Traffickers are often linked to organized crime and specialize in abducting infants and young children for adoption and household service. They also abduct girls and women both for the bridal market in China's poorest areas and for sale as prostitutes. This is caused, in part, by the skewed sex ratios growing out of China's population control policy [see Section III(i)—Population Planning]. One Chinese scholar noted that China's gender imbalance has created a flow of women from ethnic areas into Han areas to meet the demand for women.¹⁶

Other aspects of China's population control policies exacerbate the trafficking problem. China's poorest families, who often cannot afford to pay the coercive "social compensation" fine that the government assesses when it discovers an extra child, often sell or give infants, particularly female infants, to traffickers.¹⁷ When police rescue them, many families do not come forward to claim their children because they are afraid of both the police and local family and population planning officials.¹⁸ Authorities place some of these children in foster care, but many are eventually assigned to government-run orphanages. In 2004, police searching a bus found 28 newborn female infants who had been acquired by hospital staff in Guangxi province and then taken by middlemen to be sold in Henan and Anhui provinces.¹⁹

China has supported some international initiatives against trafficking and built up a framework of domestic law to address the problem.²⁰ Chinese experts and officials have cooperated with the Mekong Sub-Regional Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women, founded by the International Labor Organization, to reinforce the anti-trafficking provisions of the ILO Worst Forms of Forced Labor Convention.²¹ In domestic law, the 1997 revision of the Criminal Law abolished an older provision on "Trafficking in People" and inserted one on "Trafficking in Women and Children."²²

Despite these government efforts, some 250,000 victims were sold in China during 2003, according to UNICEF.²³ Statistics reported from the Fourth National Meeting on Women's and Children's Work, held in August 2005, reveal that over 50,000 women and children were rescued by police in four years. Together, these figures suggest that only about 5 percent of victims are rescued by the police.²⁴ Zhu Yantao, a Ministry of Public Security official, recently noted that "with its huge population, China is likely to become the center of international human trafficking."²⁵ Zhu explained that the prevalence of the crime in China is the result of economic disparities between men and women that force young rural women looking for work to move to the cities, where they fall into the hands of traffickers.²⁶

Gender Disparities

Chinese women have fewer employment opportunities than men.²⁷ Although women have a generally high rate of participation in the work force, fewer women than men seek opportunity and advancement in China's growing private sector.²⁸ To change this dynamic, the State Council's Women's Development Program has proposed that women without jobs be encouraged to work by offering them access to loans, land, skills training, information, and equality of access to village land contracts.²⁹

The educational levels of Chinese women fall well below those of men, according to a statistics cited by the State Council.³⁰ Although 99 percent of girls attend elementary school and 95 percent enter lower middle school, according to these statistics, only 75 percent go on to higher middle school. The UN Common Country Assessment for China 2004 reports figures of 89.0, 88.3, and 80.2 for the ratio of girls to every 100 boys in primary, secondary, and tertiary education.³¹ Women comprise 70 percent of China's 85 million illiterates. Improving equal access to education is one of the goals laid out in the Ten-Year Program for the Development of Chinese Women.³²

Chinese women face increasing risks from HIV/AIDS. As HIV/AIDS moves from high-risk groups dominated by men into the general population, a larger percentage of those infected are women. A U.S. study published in December 2004 predicted that the proportion of HIV positive women in China would rise,³³ a prediction that official Chinese government news media confirmed in 2005.³⁴ Women's lack of access to education, vulnerability to violence (especially in trafficking for the sex trade), increasing participation in the migrant work force, and increasing intravenous drug use all exacerbate this trend.³⁵

Notes to Section III(f)—Status of Women

1 "Chinese Police Beat Up AIDS Activist During UN Rights Visit," Radio Free Asia (Online), 31 August 05.

2 Joseph Kahn, "Beijing Police Raid Rights Group Office," New York Times, 30 August 05, A9.

3 Margaret Woo, "When Gender Differences Become a Trap: The Impact of China's Labor Law on Women," 14 Yale J.L. Feminism 69, 71 (2002).

4 "Bias or Protection? Can Women Retire at the Same Age as Men? " Xinhua (Online), 29 January 03.

5 Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Women [hereinafter Women's Rights and Interests Protection Law], enacted 3 April 92, amended 28 August 05.

6 Jonathan Hecht, "The Legal Protection of Women's Rights in China," in Human Rights in China, China Rights Forum (Fall 1995). Since passage of the Women's Rights and Interests Law, a number of institutions have been established in China to enable and encourage women to assert their rights. One example is the Center for Women's Law and Legal Services of Peking University, founded in December 1995 as the first center specializing in women's law in China. The Center has led to the development of a number of other institutions to promote women's rights, such as the recently founded Web site "Women's Watch—China."

7 Women's Rights and Interests Protection Law. See also Chen Liping, "Thoroughly Implementing the Women's Law is the Common Responsibility of the Entire Society" [Guanche shishi fun fa shi quan shehui gongtong zeren], Legal Daily (Online), 30 August 05; Chen Liping, "Interpretation of the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Women" [Jiedu fun quanyi baozhangfa xiugai zhengan], Legal Daily (Online), 29 August 05; "China Daily 'Opinion' on Draft Amendments of Women's Rights Laws," China Daily (Online), 5 July 05. The drafting committee said the ten goals of the draft are: to write the basic national principle of equality between the sexes into law; to specify which government officials have the duty to enforce the law; to specify the duties of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) at each level; to increase the number of women in positions of authority in the government and the Party; to prohibit bias against women in school admissions; to prevent gender bias in the job market and the workplace, loss of labor benefits because of special protective labor regulations, and unequal access to rights and benefits like social security, welfare, and health insurance; to protect the right of rural women, regardless of their marital status, to receive land use contracts and get an equal share of any compensation for expropriated land; to prohibit sexual harassment, to rescue and rehabilitate trafficking victims, and to forbid use of ultrasound to determine fetal sex for purposes of non-medical abortion; to clarify the responsibility of the police, the government, and the judiciary to eliminate domestic violence and provide for the rescue and rehabilitation of victims; and to clarify the administrative, civil, and criminal responsibility of those who break the Women's Rights and Interests Protection Law, as well as to provide legal assistance for women seeking redress under it. See also Rong Jiaojiao, "Law to Catapult Women's Rights into the New Century," China Daily (Online), 12 August 05.

8 Women's Rights and Interests Protection Law, art. 40. See also, "Sexual Harassment Law Gives Hope to Women Suffering in Silence," South China Morning Post (Online), 8 August 05; "China Outlaws Sexual Harassment," Xinhua (Online), 29 August 05; "Women who Encounter Sexual Harassment Have the Right to Complain to their Work Unit and Relevant Departments" [Zao xingsaorao n xing youquan xiang danwei he youguan jiguan tousu], People's Daily (Online), 23 August 05. However, some commentators have noted that the term "sexual harassment" is not defined in the law. "Those Who Sexually Harass to Be Legally Liable; But Outlines of Offense Still Unclear" [Xingsaoraozhe jiang bei zhuijiu fal zeren; jieding chidu reng wu biaojun], Xinhua (Online), 29 August 05.

9 "China Issues White Paper on Gender Equality and Women's Development" ['Zhongguo xingbie pingdeng yu fun fazhan zhuangkuang' baipishu zhichu], China Legal Information (Online), 24 August 05, The white paper cites many facts and figures to show improvements achieved in the status of women, although other research shows continued inequality in access to political power, education, healthcare, employment opportunity, and property. Wang Ying, "Gender Inequality Serious in Rural Areas," China Daily (Online), 8 September 05 (describing research by Professor Li Xiaoyun in ten poor villages in 2005).

10 "PRC Official Discusses Improvements in Women's Status at World Conference," Xinhua (Online), 30 August 05.

11 "Hu Jintao Addresses Beijing Meeting on Anniversary of World Conference on Women," Xinhua (Online), 29 August 05.

12 Guowuyuan fun ertong gongzuo weiyuanhui, currently chaired by Vice Premier Wu Yi. The Committee's Web site is at <http://www.nwccw.gov.cn/>.

13 Zhonghua chuanguo fun lianhehui, currently led by Huang Qingyi. The Federation's Web site is at < http://www.women.org.cn/>.

14 See, for example, the manual entitled All-China Women's Federation Compilation of Laws Relating to Women and Children (April 2002). Recent progress on establishing hotlines and local legal assistance centers for women facing domestic violence is touched on in "One Fifth of Women Convicts in Yunnan Jailed Because of Retaliation Against Abusive Spouses" [Yunnan sheng n fan liangcheng yin jiating baoli fanzui], Chuncheng Evening News, reprinted in Xinhua (Online), 19 August 05. See also "Ten Years of Work on Gender Equality in Yunnan: More than 600 Projects" [Yunnan sheng nann pingdeng gongzuo 10 nian chunhua qiushi: 600 duo xiangmu], Chuncheng Evening News, reprinted in Xinhua (Online), 3 August 05.

15 "Program for the Development of Chinese Women" [Zhongguo fun fazhan gangyao], Xinhua (Online), 3 September 03. The Program and some discussion of its contents are posted on the China Women's Net.

16 See Section III(i)—Population Planning. As a mass line organization, the ACWF is dominated by Party members and functions to convey and implement Party policies among the people. The "One Child Policy," although now expressed in a national law, was originally promulgated as Party policy and remains a key element of Party policy. It should be noted that article 7 of the amended Women's Rights and Interests Protection Law specifies that all levels of the ACWF have the affirmative duty to protect women's rights and interests.

17 Successful projects to protect women's rights have also been run by the Guangdong Women's Federation Legal Services Center and the Shaanxi Province Research Association for Women and the Family, founded in 1988.

18 Ma Jianxiong, "Sex Ratio, Marriage Squeeze, and Ethnic Females Marriage Migration in China" [Xingbiebi, hunyin jizhuang yu fun qianyi], Journal of Guangxi Universities for Nationalities, Vol. 26, No. 4, July 2004. International trafficking particularly harms women and girls, as evident in the estimates cited in the State Department's 2005 Report on trafficking that of the 600,000 to 800,000 victims trafficked each year, 80 percent are women and up to 50 percent minors. Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2005, available on the Department of State Web site, 6. The United States Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, as amended in 2003 [hereinafter TVPA] requires the State Department to cover "countries of origin, destination, or transit for a significant number of victims of severe forms of trafficking." Ibid., 26. The Trafficking in Persons reports assign the countries covered to one of three tiers based on their compliance with the TVPA's minimum standards for combating trafficking. Ibid, 29. In order to indicate trends in trafficking and efforts to fight it, the TVPA was amended in 2003 to add a fourth category, the "Tier 2 Special Watch List," which focuses special attention on countries that are making efforts to cope with trafficking but need to do more. The 2005 Trafficking in Persons Report puts China in the Tier 2 Special Watch List because of its failure to provide evidence of increased efforts to cope with trafficking, especially of victims trafficked to Taiwan and North Koreans trafficked into China and forcibly repatriated. Ibid., 83–84.

19 Cindy Sui, "Baby Trafficking in PRC's Rural Areas 'Widespread,'" Agence France-Presse (Online), 5 February 05.

20 Yunnan Provincial Women's Federation, in collaboration with Yunnan Provincial Bureau of Statistics, the Bureau of Statistics, Education Commission, and Justice Bureau of Jiangcheng and Menghai Counties, Yunnan Province, "China Situation of Trafficking in Children and Women: A Rapid Assessment" (August, 2003) (sponsored by ILO Mekong Sub-Regional Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women (IPEC–TICW).

21 "Yulin: 28 Baby Girls Drugged and Stuffed Into Plastic Bags for Shipping," Xinhua (Online), 31 May 04; "Baby Business," China Daily (Online), 28 October 03. Several of the traffickers in this case were sentenced to death. "Infant Trading Gang Given Death Sentence, Jail Terms, "Xinhua (Online), 30 November 03. Police have recently broken up similar gangs trafficking dozens of young babies and children in Henan province, "Woman Sentenced to Death in China for Trafficking Babies," Agence France-Presse (Online), 19 June 04, and "Baby Traffickers in China Shift Focus to Girls," South China Morning Post (Online), 4 August 05; Hohot in Inner Mongolia, "China Halts Baby Trafficking Ring," BBC News (Online), 13 July 04; Putian city in Fujian, "Police Make Arrests in China-Burma Baby Trafficking Case," Agence France-Presse (Online), 3 February 05; and Kunming city in Yunnan, "Yunnan Baby Trafficking Gang Jailed," Xinhua (Online), 14 August 2003; "Police Smash Women, Children Trafficking Gang in SW China," Xinhua (Online), 15 November 2003.

22 Relevant criminal provisions are included in Chapter IV of the PRC Criminal Law, Crimes of Infringing Upon Citizens' Right of the Person and Democratic Rights, especially arts. 240, 241, and 242. PRC Criminal Law, enacted 1 July 79, amended 1 October 97, 14 March 97, 25 December 99, 31 August 01, 29 December 01, 28 December 02.

23 Yunnan Province Women's Federation, in collaboration with Yunnan Provincial Bureau of Statistics, Bureau of Statistics, Education Commission, and Justice Bureau of Jiangcheng and Menghai Counties, Yunnan Province, China Situation of Trafficking in Children and Women: A Rapid Assessment, (August, 2003) (sponsored by ILO Mekong Sub-Regional Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women (IPEC–TICW)).

24 PRC Criminal Law, art. 240. One commentator, Zhu Jianmei, seeks further revision because, as a result of these changes, the trafficking of boys over 14 and other similarly powerless victims is relegated to the much milder crime of "Unlawful Detention." PRC Criminal Law, art. 238. Zhu also argues that coercive trafficking of women into the sex trade and raping trafficked women should be separate crimes rather than just aggravating circumstances to a basic trafficking offense. "Several Issues Concerning the Crime of Trafficking in Women and Children"[Guaimai fun ertong zui de jige wenti], Journal of Jiangsu Public Security College, March 2004, 57–61. The relevant provisions of the PRC Criminal Code are Articles 238, 239 and 240. See also Tao Ziqiang and Yang Jionghong, "How Should We Handle the Crime of Trafficking a Boy Over 14? " [Guaimai shisi sui yishang nanxing ruhe dingzui?], Procuratorial Daily (Online), 16 February 04.

25 UNICEF, "Abuse, Exploitation and Trafficking of Children in East Asia," in UNICEF East Asia and the Pacific Regional Office Presentation, cited in UNICEF, End Child Exploitation, July 2003, 10–11, 35.

26 "Over 50,000 Trafficked Women and Children Rescued by Police Over Four Years," [Sinianjian chuanguo gonganjiguan jiejiu bei guaimai fun ertong 5 wan duo ren], Shanxi Evening News (Online), 18 August 05. The author of this article seems to have acquired the statistics from the Fourth National Meeting on Women's and Children's Work, held on August 15–16, 2005. For comparison, a police report covering the years from 2001 to 2003 said 42,215 victims had been rescued during that period. Tian Yu, "Chinese Police Rescue 42,215 Women and Children over Three Years" [Woguo gong'an jiguan sannian jiejiu bei guaimai fun ertong 42,215 ren], Xinhua (Online), 2 March 04. It is difficult to ascertain the degree of overlap between the two reports. Statistics announced at a conference held in Guangxi in August 2005 to commemorate the 1995 Conference on Women in Beijing claim that a crackdown on trafficking across the border with Vietnam resulted in the rescue of 1800 victims over the course of five years. "Guangxi Strikes Hard at Cross-Border Crime of Trafficking in Women and Children," [Guangxi yanda kuaguo guaimai fun ertong fanzui], China Radio International (Online), 25 August 05.

27 Yan Wei, "Countries Strike Back—Stamping Out the Trafficking of Women in South and Southeast Asia Needs a Tougher, More Strategic Approach," Beijing Review (Online), 1 July 05.

28 Ibid.

29 Alice Yan, "Beijing Women's Federation: Women Still Lag, Despite Jiang's Promise of Job Equity," South China Morning Post (Online), 5 August 05; "Report on the Rights of Women Workers in the Workplace" [Guanzhu n gong quanyi chuangkuang], Workers' Daily (Online), 5 April 05.

30 State Council Women's Development Program, 2001–2010 [Zhongguo fun fazhan gangyao, 2001–2010], May 2001; see also "Plan for Implementation of the Women's Development Program, 2001–2010" [Guanche luoshi fun fazhan gangyao, 2001–2010], China Education Online, 11 September 03

31 State Council Women's Development Program, 2001–2010.

32 Ibid.; see also recent research led by professor Li Xiaoyun of the China Agricultural University, "Gender Inequality Serious in Rural Areas," China Daily (Online), 8 September 05; "Inequality in Town and Countryside: Still Obstacles for Girls' Education" [Chengxiang bu pingdeng: n tong shou jiaoyu reng cun fang'ai], China Education News (Online), 15 August 05.

33 Country Team China, United Nations, Common Country Assessment 2004, 59.

34 "Becoming the Ideal Support in the Wing—On Women's Right to Education" [Wei lixiang chashang chibang—guanyu fun jiaoyu quanli], Ningbo Government Net (Online), 6 December 04. Premier Wen Jiabao has recently reaffirmed the need to address gender inequalities in health and education in China. "Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao Emphasizes Protecting Rights of Women, Children," Xinhua (Online), 16 August 05.

35 Amy Phariss and Drew Thompson, "Women and HIV/AIDS in China," conference hosted by the CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies, 1 December 04. 36 "Sex Ratio of HIV Carriers Reaches 2:1," Xinhua (Online), 7 July 05. 37 Phariss, Thompson, "Women and HIV/AIDS in China."