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Statement
Wenzhuo Hou, visiting fellow at Harvard Law School,
Open Forum on Human Rights and the Rule of Law in China
04 March 2002
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am going to talk here today about a kind of human rights violation which affect the largest number of Chinese people, and yet has hardly gained much attention from either the international community or Chinese policy-makers-that is the human rights violation against peasants and rural migrant workers, who number over 1 billion people and make up more than 70 percent of China's population.
When we talk about human rights, we often talk about the rights of democracy activists, the rights to free speech, free association, sometimes about the rights of workers and workers union. We hardly ever hear about anything like the "human rights of peasants". The peasant problem is widely understood as the fundamental political problem in China. But, few think that they are suffering from the most severe and systematic human rights violation, and deprivation of equal citizenship.
The Chinese Household Registration System (ie. Hukou), created in late 1950s, established a rural-urban dichotomy system. The Chinese citizens are classified into two categories -- "urban Hukou" vs. "rural Hukou". These two kinds of Hukous have divided Chinese citizens into two worlds: the urban first world and the rural third world.
I have recently been undertaking research making a comparison between the discrimination experienced by the Chinese peasants and rural migrants versus those experienced by black Bantu people under the Apartheid regime of South Africa. Despite the huge political, legal and cultural differences, there are astonishing similarities found. Population registration laws, "Population Registration Act" in South African, like the "Household Registration Regulation" in China, established the cornerstone for a discriminatory and unjust system where one higher categorized group dominated the rest. In South Africa, black and colored people were deprived of or restricted in their voting rights. In China, according to the Election Law, the peasants only have one fourth or one eighth of the representative rights that urban citizens have. The largest social group in China, the peasants have no national or regional representative associations (while we do have all kinds of union for various social classes/groups), which directly contributed to their neglected/ marginalized political situation. The peasants are also deprived of equal opportunity in access to housing, primary education, higher education, employment, medical care, social security and so on. Black people are regularly checked for their passes in South Africa, while in China, rural migrants are checked for their "temporary residential card" , "work permit" etc, and often are arbitrarily sent to Custody and Repatriation centers. Even worse than what is experienced by black people, for the Chinese peasants, their minimal rights to land, rights of property and products are often treaded upon. They not only have to pay a disproportionally heavy tax to the State and collective, but also are subjected to numerous arbitrary fines and fees. According to a book recently published by Li Changping, an former county leader, the rural government authorities have evolved into a group who live on their high interest loans to peasants. This means, the corruption of rural government has transformed the rural leaders into a group of landlord exploiting peasants but in the name of the State, the central government.
We have known that rural women in China have the highest suicidal rate in the world. We have seen lots of reports about children from rural families who were not able to go to school, and sometimes had to do dirty, unhealthy and even dangerous jobs. As we know, school children in Jiangxi were killed while being forced to produce fireworks for a living. In Qinghai province, teenager boys were tricked to work in gold mines where they were treated as slaves, and even worse than that. Such horrific stories happen all over China and very often. In a broader sense, the whole Chinese peasants and rural migrants are all virtual slaves of the state. Their rights and properties are often abused by various governments at will, and their liberties are often deprived arbitrarily. In the case of industrial or traffic deaths, the monetary compensation they get is even less than half of an urban-Hukou person's, if they get anything at all. Yet, there are always policy-makers justifying their policies, saying that peasants are inferior, uneducated and therefore have to make sacrifices to the country, and deserve how they are treated!
We should realize that the discrimination and exploitation of peasants and migrants are in essence enforced through government policies. The Hukou system and its connected policies are at its core. But, these policies have been well incorporated into all kinds of policies affecting normal citizens life, and have evolved into an ideology justifying the mistreatment of peasants, and it has already had the effect of fostering a widespread discriminatory attitude towards peasants in the whole society.
If we truly mean to talk about human rights today, the human rights of peasants and migrants are too huge to ignore. If we do not want to see impoverished and desperate peasants start another violent peasant revolution as happened so many times in Chinese history, we must address the issues of human rights and social justice for peasants now. If we acknowledge this discrimination against peasants is comprehensive, multi-faceted and institutionalized, we should realize that it is not enough to address the problem in the classical human rights approach. It calls for a more systematic approach. Therefore, I advocate the "right of peasants and rural migrants" to be singled out as a major category of human rights and seriously studied as we do to woman's rights, children's rights, labor rights and so on.
Therefore, I call upon the international community to examine and monitor the human rights of peasants and migrant workers in China. I recommend the following action be taken:
- To adopt a "categorical/identity discrimination" approach in monitoring the human rights situations of peasants/migrants, that is: a discrimination based on their immutable characteristics (descent)-the Hukou which is imposed on them by the state; by such an approach, we can address the problem in a comprehensive way.
- To facilitate political and legal institutional reform based on Hukou; to investigate the whole implication of Hukou in Chinese citizen's rights and equality; to support the on-going reform of Hukou, provided that this regime is not replaced by another kind of repressive and discriminating registration system.
- To single out discrimination and human rights violations against peasants/ migrants when documenting human rights in China, such as in the US State Department Report.
- To investigate the conflict between peasants and the governments in the vast countryside of China; to study the growing discontent of peasants from a human rights perspectives; to raise awareness among peasants about their human rights; to support local community democracy and self-governing initiatives, particularly in rural areas and urban migrants neighborhood.
- To address the agricultural problem in China, to investigate the Chinese rural taxation and debts problem, to facilitate the reform of rural government, which has become increasingly rent seeking and exploitative in nature.
- To facilitate capacity-building in rural China, to support further training of grassroots social activists particularly those representing rural peasants and migrant workers; activists working at that level have the least chance of getting any training, or chance to speak, yet, they can be greatly empowered if given such opportunities.
- To review the impact of WTO on Chinese peasants; noting the WTO's potential devastating effect on peasant's livelihood, which may unleash social unrest from rural China to the rest, it is of particular immediacy and importance to address the human rights concerns of peasants.
- To support academic research and study on the peasants and migrants human rights.
When the exploitation of peasants and the corruption of rural governments in China become international human rights concern, we can have some hope that the misery of Chinese peasants can be ameliorated, and their equal rights as citizens can be protected.
To bring the human rights of peasants into the forefront of human rights discussion would greatly empower the peasant/migrants, and enable them to have access to legal protection and encourage the international community to voice out their concerns. It will make all these human rights arguments more relevant to the most powerless people in China, who are otherwise totally reliant upon the mercy of authorities, and who would otherwise view "human rights" talk as totally irrelevant to their life, and be unwilling to participate. I believe introducing the issue of human rights for peasants/migrants would broaden the dimension of human rights dialogue, bringing new force, gaining more public support, and therefore would give tremendous support to the democracy movement in China.
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