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.
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