Yunnan To Establish Anti-Trafficking Office To Focus on Women and Children

The Yunnan provincial government issued the Yunnan Province Implementing Opinion on the National Action Plan on Combating Trafficking in Women and Children (2008-2012) (Yunnan provincial implementing opinion) for the National Action Plan on Combating Trafficking in Women and Children (2008-2012) (National Action Plan) on November 21, 2008, calling for the establishment of an anti-trafficking office to coordinate the province's anti-trafficking efforts. The implementing opinion, like the National Action Plan, focuses on women and children. Yunnan is the fourth province to issue an implementation plan after the State Council issued the National Action Plan in December 2007. Guizhou province issued an implementing opinion in May 2008, followed by Hainan and Fujian provinces in June 2008.

Similar to Guizhou, Hainan, and Fujian's implementing plans, Yunnan province will:

• Establish an anti-trafficking "leadership committee" with an office located within the provincial public security department. The "leadership committee" will implement, organize, and coordinate cross-regional, inter-governmental, inter-agency, and cross-provincial (district and city) anti-trafficking efforts.
• Include funds in the annual budget required by each locality and department to ensure the development and implementation of anti-trafficking work.
• Investigate and punish, according to law, illegal employers and employment of child labor, and ban illegal employment or marriage brokerage agencies or their Internet sites.
• Strengthen the provision of social welfare and assist with victim reintegration for rescued women and children, including appropriate arrangement for children without guardians, school enrollment for children who have reached appropriate age, as well as occupational training and employment assistance.
• Create special files for rescued women and children to track their living conditions and to coordinate relevant departments and organizations' efforts to resolve problems faced by those who have been rescued.
• Enhance international and cross-provincial cooperation.

The Yunnan provincial implementing opinion also includes a new measure allowing rescued women who cannot or are unwilling to return home to remain in Yunnan, subject to the approval of the relevant department(s). For those rescued women who are allowed to stay in Yunnan, the Yunnan Provincial Population and Family Planning Commission will regard them as "permanent residents" (changzhu renkou), instead of as migrants or members of the so-called "floating population" who do not have a local household registration (hukou). (For a discussion of China's household registration system, see section II--Freedom of Residence in the CECC 2008 Annual Report, including the Addendum: Recent Hukou Reforms (pp. 105-112); for a broader retrospective, see also an October 2005 CECC topic paper on China's household registration system, and a chart on Chinese Hukou reforms as of 2004.) The significance of the new policy is twofold:

1. Trafficked Chinese women without a local hukou may avoid involuntary repatriation, thus minimizing the risks of facing danger, such as threats from their traffickers, or re-trafficked once returned home.
2. For non-Chinese women trafficked into Yunnan, neither the National Action Plan nor the Yunnan provincial implementing opinion distinguishes between foreign and Chinese victims, and the measures do not specify that this new policy is applicable only to Chinese citizens. If interpreted in this way, the Yunnan provincial implementing opinion's policy of allowing non-Chinese women to remain in Yunnan would comply with the international standard set forth in Article 7 of the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking In Persons, Especially Women and Children. This Protocol states that "each State Party shall consider adopting legislative or other appropriate measures that permit victims of trafficking in persons to remain in its territory, temporarily or permanently, in appropriate cases." However, it remains to be seen how the new policy will be implemented in practice.

Even though the Yunnan provincial implementing opinion appears to provide better protection and prevention measures to trafficked women and children, there remain several weaknesses:

• The measures do not include language about men identified as trafficking victims.
• Authority coordinating the inter-agency anti-trafficking effort is assigned to the provincial public security department. Generally speaking, public security departments may favor a "law and order" approach to anti-trafficking, rather than a human rights approach that favors prevention and addresses the root causes of human trafficking.

See the following Commission analyses for a discussion of China's anti-trafficking efforts: China's Anti-Trafficking Efforts Remain Inadequate One Year After Government's Release of National Action Plan, Infant Trafficking From the Earthquake Zone and Other Cases Reflect Anti-Trafficking Challenges, China's Long-Awaited Action Plan on Trafficking Aims To Provide "Sustainable Solutions". See also Section II-Human Trafficking in the CECC 2008 Annual Report.