Freedom of Residence and Movement
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.
Shenzhen city issued the new Temporary Measures on Residency Permits on May 22. The measures introduce a number of reforms to the city's household registration (hukou). (See the Congressional-Executive Commission on China's Topic Paper and Hukou Reform chart on China's Household Registration System for more information on the hukou system).
According to a July 21 Reuters report and a July 24 Agence France-Presse (via Yahoo News) report, Beijing authorities launched an anti-pollution campaign that month to halt construction and close factories in the city, leaving migrants who had worked on Olympic projects jobless and forcing them to leave the city or find work elsewhere. A March 12 Human Rights Watch report documented severe exploitation of migrants who lack household registration and work for Olympic construction sites, including failure to provide insurance and social services, faulty or non-existent labor contracts, and unpaid wages.
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The Congressional-Executive Commission on China held a hearing entitled "The Impact of the 2008 Olympic Games on Human Rights and the Rule of Law in China" on Wednesday, February 27, 2008, from 2:30 to 4:00 PM in Room B-318 of the Rayburn House Office Building. Chairman Sander Levin and Co-Chairman Byron L. Dorgan presided.
Chinese Muslim pilgrims may now only receive hajj visas at the Saudi Embassy in Beijing and only if they are part of a Chinese government-sponsored trip, according to an announcement from the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) reported on October 4 in Ta Kung Pao and October 12 on the SARA Web site. The new measures were established in an agreement signed in May between the state-controlled Islamic Association of China (IAC) and the Saudi Ministry of Pilgrimage. SARA publicized the agreement after a group of Muslims from the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) attempted to obtain Saudi visas via a third country in August and September. As part of the agreement, the IAC will organize a second overseas pilgrimage each year in addition to the main annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
A senior Ministry of Public Security (MPS) official disclosed the use of mass roundup measures to maintain social order during the early March annual plenary sessions of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), according to official sources. The CPPCC plenary session began on March 3, and the NPC plenary convened on March 5. Xu Hu, Deputy Director of the MPS's Department for the Management of Public Order, said at a March 2 press conference that public security officials will round up those "people without proper professions, fixed places of residence, or stable incomes who have been hanging around Beijing for a long time" and encourage them to leave the capital, according to a Chinese-language transcript posted on the China Internet Information Center's (CIIC) Web site. The CIIC Web site operates under the auspices of the State Council.
Municipal authorities in Shenyang city, Liaoning province, will revoke reforms to the system of temporary residence permits that they adopted in July 2003, according to a December 14, 2005, article in the People's Procuratorate Daily. The head of the Shenyang Public Security Bureau (PSB) confirmed that labor officials are in the process of drafting new regulations to reinstate the requirement that migrants obtain a temporary residence permit to live and work in the city. In 2003, the Shenyang government abolished its existing temporary residence permit system in favor of a new system that only required migrants to sign in with local PSB authorities upon arrival in the city.
Shenzhen authorities have tightened household registration (hukou) rules governing migrants, according to articles in the Beijing News, South China Morning Post, and on the Shenzhen municipal government Web site. Migrants who do not qualify for a local hukou usually cannot obtain public services such as health care and schooling for their children on an equal basis with registered residents.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Services (MOLSS) has issued a migrant rights handbook (2005 edition) that says that MOLSS will not require migrants to obtain a work registration card in their place of origin before they seek jobs in urban areas, according to a September 26 Xinhua article. The requirement to do so had been in place since 1994, and limited migrant employment prospects and allowed local authorities the discretion to charge migrants additional fees, according to a September 26 article published on the Yangcheng Evening News Web site.
Public Security Vice Minister Liu Jinguo told an intergovernmental working group on migrant issues in late October that the government is considering national reforms to China's household registration (hukou) system, according to an October 26 Legal Daily article. Liu did not say, however, when the reforms would be adopted or implemented. Liu is the latest in a series of government officials to raise the subject of hukou reform since the Communist Party plenum concluded in October.