The State Council of the People's Republic of China published the Program for the Development of Chinese Women (2001-2010) on May 22, 2001 in Beijing .
Foreword
General Objectives
Major Objectives and Strategies and Measures
1. Women and the Economy
2. Women in Decision-Making and Management
3. Education of Women
4. Women and Health
5. Women and the Law
6. Women and the Environment
Organization and Implementation
Monitoring and Evaluation
Foreword
The ringing of the bell for the 21st century marks a new historical era and a great new march for women's movement and women's advancement in China .
Women's development, as an important part of global economic and social progress, has received wide attention of the international community. In the past decades, there have been a number of documents adopted at the international level for the promotion of women's progress and development, there has emerged a consensus worldwide to relate women's issues closely to the world political and economic development, and there have been actions taken step by step to move to the top of government agenda the mitigation and elimination of negative impacts of economic globalization on women. The Chinese Government takes, as always, the protection of women's rights and interests and the promotion of women's development as its responsibility, and in 1995 formulated and promulgated the Program for the Development of Chinese Women (1995-2000) (hereinafter referred to as PDCW'95), a milestone in Chinese women's development. With efforts by the State Council and local governments at all levels, and support by all social forces including non-governmental organizations, the major targets set out in PDCW'95 have been basically achieved, thus laying a foundation for women's development in the 21st century. Through the implementation of PDCW'95, the social environment for the subsistence and development of Chinese women has been improved, the protection of women's lawful rights and interests has been strengthened, and the process of equality between men and women has been accelerated.
There have been overall advances in education and health care for women and significant increases in women's participation in economy, politics and other spheres of life.
The years from 2001 to 2010 will be a critical period of time for China 's economic and social development, for the improvement of the system of China 's socialist market economy and for the expansion of China 's opening to the outside world. China 's participation in economic globalization is expected to be wider in scope and higher in level. The situation of and tasks in the reform, opening-up and the modernization drive, and growing economic globalization all call for higher objectives and a faster process for women's development.
In order to better protect women's rights and interests, enhance women's overall competence, speed up the process of equality between men and women, and to bring into full play the role of women in China's socialist modernization drive, the Chinese Government has formulated and promulgated the Program for the Development of Chinese Women (2001-2010) (hereinafter referred to as PDCW). In PDCW, general and major objectives have been set forth for women's development in 2001-2010, based on women's current situation, periodic and long-term goals of women's development, and China 's basic conditions, and in line with the general requirements of the Tenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People's Republic of China . And in consideration of the 12 critical areas of concern covered by the Platform for Action adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women and approaches taken by other countries in drawing up their programs for women's development, on the basis of the implementation of PDCW'95, in view of the problems that need to be addressed with urgency in the development of Chinese women, and for purpose of sustainable development in 2001-2010, six areas are defined in PDCW as priorities for development, namely: women and the economy, women in decision-making and management, education of women, women and health, women and law, and women and the environment, with the promotion of women's development as the main theme throughout the document.
PDCW is aimed to strengthen the relevant functions of the government, mobilize all social forces, create a better social environment for women's advancement and development, and at the same time, to encourage women to work harder and strive for their advancement and development through participation in economic and social development processes.
It is believed that the situation of Chinese women will be improved considerably in the 21st century.
General Objectives
Implement the basic state policy of equality between men and women, and promote women's full participation in economic and social development, to promote the realization of equality between men and women in political, economic, cultural, social and family life. Ensure the equal access of women to employment and economic resources, to enhance women's economic status; ensure women's political rights, to enhance women's participation in the administration and management of and decision-making on state and social affairs; ensure women's equal access to education, to promote the educational level of women in general and the level of life-long education of women; ensure women's access to primary health care services, to enhance women's health status and their life expectancy; ensure women's equal access to legal protection, to safeguard women's lawful rights and interests; and improve the ecological and social environment for women's development, to improve the quality of life of women and promote the sustainable development of the cause of women's advancement.
Major Objectives and Strategies and Measures
1. Women and the Economy
Major Objectives
(1) Ensure women's equal right and equal access to economic resources.
(2) Make efforts to eliminate gender discrimination and promote gender equality in employment, and safeguard the right of women to work, seeking to ensure that women account for over 40 percent of the total employed population.
(3) Ensure that women enjoy equal right with men to social security and that the coverage of the maternity insurance developed for urban workers reaches over 90 percent.
(4) Ensure special labor protection for female workers.
(5) Reduce poverty among women and bring down the number of women living in poverty.
Strategies and Measures
Women's economic rights in equality with men and their sharing of economic resources and enjoyment of benefits of social development are basic conditions for women's development.
(1) State macro-policies
The major objectives for women's development should be reflected in the national plan for economic and social development, and a gender perspective should be integrated into the economic analysis and the economic restructuring.
- Generate guidelines and policies for women's equal participation in economic development, and provide opportunities and channels to women for their equal participation in economic decision-making, with a view to reducing the gender disparity and enhancing women's participation in economic decision-making and management.
- Ensure women's equal access to economic resources and effective services, including their access to capital, credit, land, technology, information etc.; ensure the rights of rural women in equality with men living in the place of their residence in land contract, production and economic activities, in the approval of housing sites, land compensation and in bonus of shares and the like.
- Improve women's economic status and make appropriate special financial input to the projects that will enhance women's livelihood and development.
(2) Laws and sectoral policies
Enact and/or strengthen laws, regulations and sectoral policies that promote women's equal participation in economic and social development and their equal employment.
- Implement the Labor Law of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and other relevant laws and regulations, and prohibit gender discrimination in recruitment and hiring.
- Ensure the equal right of women with men in the distribution of capital, technology and other economic factors, guarantee the possibility of equal pay for equal work in diversified forms of distribution and the possibility of women's equal pay with men for the same type and the same category of work, and make efforts to close the gap between women and men in income.
- Expand women's employment channels, give full considerations to the employment needs of women during economic development and the economic restructuring, and vigorously develop tertiary industry, community services in particular, with a view to creating new job opportunities and placements for women; raise the proportion of women employed in new industries and new trades and the percentage of women among the professional and technical people of medium and high levels; encourage self-employment, encourage women to find their own jobs, assist and guide women to develop private and individual businesses and small- and medium-sized scientific and technological enterprises, and promote women's re-employment in various forms.
- Further implement policies on labor protection for female workers, to ensure the provision of necessary working and labor conditions for them and to solve their special difficulties associated with their physiological characteristics, at work and during their physical labor.
- Guide various employing units to include a clause/clauses on special labor protection for female workers in their labor contracts and collective contracts, to improve the measures on special labor protection for female workers and ensure the continuing enhancement of their working conditions; strengthen advocacy on and education and training in the laws, regulations and policies on special labor protection for female workers, in order to raise legal awareness among employing units and their awareness of safe production, and to intensify the consciousness of female workers of self-protection.
- Ensure the right of women to work through intensified supervision over the implementation of the laws and regulations on labor protection; investigate and deal with, according to law, acts that violate the Labor Law of PRC, the Law of PRC on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women, the Regulation on Labor Protection for Female Staff and Workers and other relevant laws and regulations, and acts that violate women's lawful rights.
- Guide and support rural surplus female labor force in their shift to non-agricultural industries through providing rural women with training in various working skills to facilitate their shift from traditional planting thereto, and through guiding and organizing rural laborers to get involved in urban constructions, with a view to creating more job opportunities in non-agricultural sectors for rural women.
- Develop policies and measures for the reduction of poverty among women, and increase poor women's income; in the campaign to develop China's western regions, intensify support for poor women, support, in the principle of women first under the same conditions, poor women to get engaged in anti-poverty projects, and encourage and assist the anti-poverty economic undertakings that benefit women and the undertakings managed by women, to enable poor women to access anti-poverty resources and benefit directly from the results of anti-poverty efforts.
(3) Social security and services
Further improve the social security system, and make active efforts to promote women employed in economic entities of various ownerships and at various income levels to join social security schemes according to the state regulations and to ensure the access of women to effective services during their participation in economic development.
- Ensure that women enjoy equal access with men to the basic old-age insurance, basic medical insurance, unemployment benefits, insurance for work-related injury and the maternity insurance that are developed for workers in the urban areas.
- Work to establish a maternity insurance system for workers extensively in the urban areas, and improve corresponding implementing measures, to ensure the basic livelihood of female workers and their needs for medical care during childbirth.
- Provide information, services and training to women for their work and employment, strengthen the services of employment guidance and job introduction that are made available to women by public job centers, organize employment training programs according to women's needs, and enhance women's ability to get a job.
- Provide employment services and skills training to women with disabilities, and enhance their employment rate.
- Encourage and support social groups to organize various training programs that will help improve the production skills of women.
2. Women in Decision-Making and Management
Major Objectives
(1) Enhance women's participation in the administration and management of and decision-making on state and social affairs.
(2) Raise the proportion of women in the administration. Make efforts to ensure that there is more than one woman in the leading bodies of governments at all levels and that women are represented in the leading bodies of more than half of the ministries and commissions under the State Council and in the leading bodies of more than half of the government departments at the provincial and prefecture levels; introduce measures to ensure a significant increase in the number of women holding principal office or posts of major importance.
(3) Work to ensure a gradual increase in the percentage of women cadres among the total cadre force.
(4) Make efforts to ensure that the percentage of women in the management of the professions and sectors where women predominate is in proportion to their percentage therein.
(5) Aim at ensuring an appropriate percentage of women in the members of villagers committees and residents committees.
(6) Expand channels for and enhance women's democratic participation.
Strategies and Measures
Women's wide participation in the administration and management of state and social affairs and their full enjoyment of democracy and freedom are important indications of progress and development of the nation.
(1) State macro-policies
Promote women's wider and higher participation in the administration and management of and decision-making on state and social affairs, and expand channels for women's democratic participation.
- Make efforts to fully ensure the right of women to participate in the administration and management of and decision-making on state and social affairs, guide women to participate, according to law, in the management of economic, cultural and social affairs, and enhance the proportion of women and their participation in politics.
- Improve the mechanism of equal competition, the management of civil servants, and the mechanism of supervision and monitoring during the reform of the personnel system, seeking to create equal competition opportunities for women to participate in decision-making and management; give priority to women from among the candidates who have the same qualifications, in the selection of cadres.
- Solicit opinions and suggestions from women deputies to people's congresses and to people's political consultative conferences at all levels, from the broad masses of women and from women's organizations, in the formulation of principles and policies concerning women's fundamental interests.
- Bring into full play the role of women's federations at all levels in democratic participation and democratic supervision, and ensure that they are enabled to play their role as a bridge to link the masses of women, and as a major channel to convey women ' s opinions and suggestions.
- Give great importance to the opinions and suggestions of women's federations about the training and selection of cadres from among women, and about women's political participation and political discussions.
(2) Laws and sectoral policies
Enact and strengthen relevant laws, regulations and policies that promote women's equal participation in decision-making and management, and encourage and guide women to actively involve themselves in competition and democratic management.
- Make efforts to achieve the target that women are represented in the leading bodies at the provincial, prefecture and county levels, according to the program made by the relevant departments for the training and selection of cadres from among women.
- Take steps to increase the number of women in the leading bodies of government departments, through, among other things, raising the proportion of women in the management of female-dominated professions and departments, and efforts made to ensure the representation of women in the leading bodies of the departments, firstly, of education, science and technology, culture, public health, sports, family planning, civil affairs, the judiciary, labor and social security.
- Uphold the principle of "openness, fairness, competition and selecting the best" in the selection, appointment and promotion of cadres and in the employment of civil servants, and ensure that there is no discrimination against women.
- Make more efforts for the training of cadres from among outstanding young women and give priority to outstanding young women in the selection of cadres, ensuring that there are an appropriate number of women cadres in the reserve contingent for posts in leading bodies at all levels.
- Enhance the political and educational levels of women cadres, to ensure a significant increase in the number of women cadres with college education and above.
- In employing professional, technical and managerial personnel, no enterprise or institution may refuse, on the ground of sex, to recruit women who are up to the requirements, and no content of gender discrimination may be allowed in the engagement contract.
- Endeavor to foster and identify women for senior management positions, along with the practice of establishing a modern corporate system. Encourage state-owned enterprises to take active action to explore new forms of women's democratic participation at the levels of decision-making and management as the board of directors, the board of supervisors and the managers, seeking to raise the proportion of women in the members of the leading bodies of enterprises.
- Uphold and improve the democratic management system of an enterprise, primarily the congress of the staff and workers of the enterprise, to ensure that the percentage of women in the congress is in proportion to their percentage in the total number of workers and staff of the enterprise.
- In the process of democratic elections, encourage women to exercise their right to vote and their right to stand for election, and to participate actively in elections, in order to enhance women's democratic participation and the proportion of women therein.
- Expand democracy at the grassroots levels, encourage and promote women to participate in the discussion of and the decision-making on grassroots public affairs, to ensure that women directly exercise their democratic rights; ensure that directors of women's representative conferences nominated as candidates for election to residents committees and villagers committees are enabled to work as members there of when their candidature gets approved by election; introduce measures to ensure a remarkable increase in the proportion of women represented in villagers congresses.
(3) Social advocacy and training
Further enhance the understanding by the whole society of the importance of women's participation in decision-making and in the management of social affairs, in order to create an enabling social environment for the participation of women in politics, and to ensure the access of women in equality with men to training and education.
- Strengthen the training and education of women cadres and the provision of opportunities for women to obtain more work experiences by post-rotation, with a view to fostering and enabling women to take up various top-level positions, raising their awareness of political participation and political discussions, and to enhancing their competitiveness; intensify the training of professional women, technical women and women in the management, in order to enhance their political competence and professional skills.
- Commend and reward outstanding women, and vigorously give publicity to women for their roles in and contributions to the improvement of ethical progress, material civilization and social development, to enhance the understanding by the whole society of women.
3. Education of Women
Major Objectives
(1) Ensure the right of girls to nine-year compulsory education; increase the net enrolment rate of school-age girls to primary school up to around 99 percent, the retention rate of girls in five-year primary education up to about 95 percent, basically putting an end to it that school-age girls are without access to primary education; increase the gross enrolment rate of girls to junior high school to around 95 percent.
(2) Work to ensure that the gross enrolment rates of girls in senior high school education and higher education rise up to around 75 percent and 15 percent respectively.
(3) Introduce measures to increase the literacy rate of adult women to over 85 percent, and that of young and middle-aged women about 95 percent.
(4) Raise the level of life-long education of women.
(5) Make efforts to promote the number of years of education that women receive on average to the advanced level in developing countries.
Strategies and Measures
To reduce the gap between men and women in education and to raise women's technical and educational levels are essential for the development of women.
(1) State macro-policies
The national strategy for the training of a greater number of skilled personnel should be sensitive to the principle of equality between men and women, and the main objectives for the education of women should be integrated into the national programs for educational development.
- Incorporate a gender perspective into teacher training programs during the reform of curricula, teaching contents and teaching methods, and set up the courses of women studies, Marxist viewpoints of women, and gender and development in relevant specialties in higher education, to further strengthen gender awareness among teachers and students.
- Develop policies that provide women with equal opportunities for and avenues to education, to
reduce the gender disparity in education.
- Improve the structure of gender distribution in the fields of study, with a view to fostering women specialized in high and new technologies and women for advanced management positions.
- Ensure the access of both women and men to information and quality educational resources in the process of the modernization of educational technologies and wide application of information in education.
- Increase the input to education in poor areas, in order to create conditions that allow women living there to access education.
(2) Laws and sectoral policies
Enact and improve relevant laws, regulations and policies to facilitate the equal access of women and men to the same level of education.
- Ensure that the legislation on education is responsive to gender equality and safeguards the right of women to education.
- Further implement the Law of PRC on Compulsory Education and other relevant laws and regulations, with emphasis on addressing the problems in compulsory education faced by girls living in poor areas in China's western regions and areas inhabited by ethnic groups, girls with disabilities and by girls among the floating population; assist girl dropouts and girls who are without access to education to complete their nine-year compulsory education; bring down the gap between boys and girls in schooling.
- Train and foster more female students from ethnic groups in inland schools by bringing into full play the strengths and capacity of large- and medium-sized cities and economically developed areas.
- Enhance the access of women to vocational education and adult education, focusing major efforts on training women in occupational skills and strengthening their ability to respond to their job changes; ensure that new women labor force and employed women have access to various vocational education and adult education through regular degree education, non-degree vocational education and various training programs; make more efforts to develop secondary vocational education in counties (cities), townships (towns) and in the rural areas, to provide girl graduates from junior high school with opportunities in various forms to continue their study.
- Promote more women to receive higher education through implementing in an all round way various programs on the provision of financial support to poor students and assisting poor female college students to complete their education.
- Create conditions and opportunities for women to access education through the active use of web and distance education.
- Intensify literacy programs for women, with top priority given to rural women.
- Incorporate the program of quality-oriented education for women into all aspects of formal and non-formal education and training, in order to nurture and enhance the ability of female students to use their knowledge for innovations and their ability to adapt to the society, reinforce their qualifications and scientific spirit, and to promote the educational level of women in general and their ability to apply science and technology.
- Enhance the life-long education of women through building up a popular and socialized life-long educational system that provides conditions and opportunities for women's life-long learning.
- Undertake to create conditions that enable rural women laborers to access skills training and functional literacy programs; integrate basic education and education for “green certificate” into junior high school education to enable girl students to acquire more comprehensive knowledge and production skills.
- Raise the educational level of women living in the remote and poor areas through counterpart support for local anti-poverty endeavors and educational development, and through anti-poverty projects by distance education.
- Conduct vocational education and vocational training for women with disabilities, in order to provide them with opportunities to access education, enhance their educational level and to strengthen their ability to promote their livelihood and their development.
(3) Social education and training
Widely advocat
e gender equality and disseminate laws and regulations relating to education, in order to create an enabling social environment for the access of women to education.
- Encourage and support all sectors of society to run schools, to create conditions and opportunities for women to access education.
- Continue to mobilize all sectors of society to get involved in literacy programs for women.
4. Women and Health
Major objectives
(1) Ensure that women have access to health-care services throughout their life cycle, and enhance women's life expectancy.
(2) Improve women's reproductive health.
(3) Ensure the right of women to family planning.
(4) Ensure that women among the floating population have access to the same level of health-care services as the women with their permanent residence registered locally do.
(5) Bring the rate of women infected with HIV under control at a low level.
(6) Enhance awareness among women about health building, in order to promote women's physical fitness.
Strategies and Measures
The state of women's complete physical, mental and social well-being is a basic indicator of the status of women's subsistence.
(1) State macro-policies
The major objectives for the health of women should be reflected in the national program for the reform and development of public health.
- Put prevention first in efforts for the health of women, focusing more attention on rural women.
- Properly arrange funding for women's health-care services and for researches thereon, in the optimization of the distribution of public health resources.
- Guide the development of health industries, in order to ensure the continuing satisfaction of the health needs of women.
- Establish correct views about the health of women among the whole society and disseminate health knowledge through publicity and educational programs.
- Improve the management of family planning and technical services, advocate informed choices of contraception and birth control, and promote the participation of both husband and wife in family planning.
(2) Laws and sectoral policies
Implement the Law of PRC on Maternal and Infant Health Care, continue the efforts to improve the laws, regulations and policies on maternity and child health-care, and safeguard the right of women to health.
- Accelerate legislation on public health, and improve and implement the laws and regulations that are mainly on public health and the health of women.
- Intensify administrative enforcement of the laws on public health, strengthen the supervision and management of health products, health institutions and health workers, and investigate and deal with any illegal act in any form that threatens women's health, according to law.
- Strengthen the role of local communities in the provision of health services, integrate the work on population and family planning into the system of community management and community services, and build up a mode of management that is based on the place of present residence; bring the health-care services for pregnant and lying-in women among the floating population into that for local pregnant and lying-in women.
- Strengthen the construction of health institutions and the networks of health-care services in the rural areas, and ensure the provision of comprehensive preventive health services; focus more attention on the examination and treatment of the illnesses that seriously endanger the health of rural women, and prevent and bring down the incidence of gynecological diseases among rural women.
- Train maternity and child health-care workers in health knowledge, in order to improve their basic knowledge and basic skills and to enhance the quality of the services they provide.
- Ensure that reproductive and mental health-care services provided to women are responsive to their physiological and psychological characteristics specific to their age, and seek to raise the general survey and treatment rates of common gynecological diseases.
- Intensify the construction of obstetric services, and create conditions for childbirth in hospital, with a view to bringing down the maternal mortality rate nationwide by one fourth of the level of the year 2000. Endeavor to raise the rate of childbirth in hospital by rural pregnant women up to 65 percent and the rate of childbirth in hospital by pregnant and high-risk women to over 90 percent; in the remote areas where childbirth in hospital is difficult, make efforts to ensure that the rate of disinfected midwifery reaches over 95 percent.
- Improve the quality of obstetrics services, to reduce unnecessary medical interventions and bring down Cesarean births.
- Conduct scientific research into reproductive health-care, with a view to enhancing the prevention and treatment of the diseases that pose a great danger to the health of women.
- Conduct research on and disseminate new technologies and methods for safe and effective contraception and birth-control, and provide quality contraception and birth-control services; work to bring the incidence of complications arising from birth-control operations under control at lower than 1 per 1000; prevent unwanted pregnancies and reduce the rate of induced abortions.
- Develop male contraceptives and birth-control products, and mobilize men to adopt birth-control measures, to increase the proportion of male contraception.
- Disseminate the knowledge of reproductive health-care, the best chance of having a healthy infant and up-bringing of children, and knowledge of contraception and birth-control, with emphasis on education in reproductive health, to ensure that reproductive health-care knowledge is spread out in 80 percent of the populated areas, and that the knowledge of family planning is spread out to the population of child-bearing age in 80 percent of the populated areas.
- Intensify the work for prevention and treatment of AIDS; strengthen the management of blood collecting and supplying agencies and blood products manufacturers; disseminate to the people all over the country through information and educational networks the knowledge of prevention and treatment of AIDS and self-protection, to ensure that more people get informed of AIDS.
(3) Social security and services
Improve the medical insurance system, and guarantee the possibility of women's access to basic medical services.
- Promote the further improvement of the basic medical insurance and the maternity insurance developed for workers in the urban areas.
- Enhance the level of the health-care services enjoyed by rural women and their ability against the risks of diseases through various forms of health insurance services including cooperative medical programs.
- Promote the achievement of a fundamental transformation of the views and approaches in the provision of medical and health-care services from the disease-centered to the people-centered, to ensure the combination of the treatment of diseases with health-care and to continuously serve the health needs of the broad masses of women.
- Advocate scientific and healthy ways of health-building, to enhance women's physical fitness; create conditions to facilitate the participation of women in the nationwide health-building drive, by making use of existing sports facilities, and constructing and opening up health-building centers in parks and local communities.
5. Women and the Law
Major Objectives
(1) Reinforce and improve the laws and regulations that promote equality between men and women.
(2) Develop programs to disseminate the laws and regulations on the protection of women's rights and interests.
(3) Protect women's right of the person, and prohibit all forms of violence against women.
(4) Safeguard the right of women to property in equality with men.
(5) Protect women's lawful right of complaint, right of appeal and their various rights and interests in legal proceedings.
(6) Provide legal aid to women.
Strategies and Measures
To improve legislation and to safeguard various rights of women as prescribed by law and regulations are important guarantees of the realization of women's lawful rights and interests.
(1) Legislation
National legislation should be fully gender-sensitive and provide regulations on social acts that have an impact on the development of women.
- Further reinforce and improve the special laws and regulations on the protection of women's rights and interest in accordance with the Constitution of PRC and the Law of PRC on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women.
- Take women's issues into consideration in the process of reinforcing and improving relevant laws and regulations, to ensure that women enjoy equal rights with men in political, economic, cultural, social and family life.
(2) Administration of justice and law enforcement
Intensify judicial protection, legal supervision and law enforcement.
- Prevent effectively and crack down sternly on various offenses against women's right of the person and their right to property, to reduce the incidence of rape and trafficking and other criminal cases in violation of women's right of the person, and to raise the rate of lawsuit settlement; prevent and curb domestic violence against women; crack down sternly on whoring and prostitution, and work to eliminate pornography, gambling and drug-abuse and other hideous social phenomena.
- Further promote the establishment and strengthening of a mechanism that invites social workers from women's federations as specially invited jurors, to further ensure the earnest implementation of the principle of equality between the sexes and the principle of protecting women's lawful rights and interests, and the fairness in the process of the trial of cases involving women.
- Intensify legal supervision, to maintain judicial impartiality, and to further enhance judicial efficiency.
(3) Dissemination of laws and legal education
Integrate the dissemination of the laws and regulations on the protection of women's rights and interests into the national program for the dissemination of laws and legal education.
- Integrate the dissemination of laws and legal education into the programs for the improvement of ethical progress, to enhance legal awareness and legal knowledge among the whole society about safeguarding women's lawful rights and interests, and to ensure that the laws and regulations on the protection of women's rights and interests are disseminated to a greater proportion of women.
- Enhance women's legal awareness to empower them to safeguard their rights.
(4) Legal services and legal aid
Set up a legal aid system to provide various forms of legal services and social support to women who are victims.
- Strengthen the system of complaints by letters and calls, to provide legal counseling and legal services, and to deal with, in a timely manner, complaints lodged by women who are victims.
- Introduce measures to provide legal aid, medical care, mental rehabilitation and other services to women who suffer violence and need help.
- Call on women's federations, trade unions and youth's federations to make efforts to protect the lawful rights and interests of women who are victims according to law, within the scope of their work.
6. Women and the Environment
Major Objectives
(1) Create an enabling social environment for the overall development of women.
(2) Enhance the level of the social welfare enjoyed by women.
(3) Further enhance family virtues, and further encourage equal, healthy, harmonious and stable family relations.
(4) Work to create a favorable living and working environment for women.
(5) Enhance women's participation in environmental protection and decision-making.
(6) Seek to increase the amount of time that women may budget for their own pursuits.
Strategies and Measures
To optimize social environment and protect natural environment is a condition for an effective safeguarding of women's lawful rights and interests and for the promotion of women's progress and development.
(1) State macro-policies
The major objectives for women and the environment should be fully embodied in the programs for the development of culture, education, publicity and environment.
- Develop gender-sensitive cultural and media policies, and make more efforts to publicize the basic state policy of equality between men and women, in order to strengthen the gender awareness of the whole society, eliminate step by step prejudice, discrimination and depreciatory perceptions against women, and to create an enabling social environment for women's development.
- Encourage women to study and work harder, and to develop and progress as a new type of women, with lofty ideals, moral integrity, a good level of education and a strong sense of discipline, and with a stronger sense of self-esteem, self-confidence, self-reliance and self-strengthening.
- Increase input to social welfare services, speed up the construction of social welfare establishments and the rebuilding of social welfare facilities, with a view to improving the livelihood security for women with low income, and raising step by step the standards of relief and subsidies for urban poor women.
- Actively develop services and economic undertakings for older people, and strive for a gradual realization of socialized services for them, to ensure the physical and mental well-being of older women.
- Bring into play the essential role of women in environmental protection, in the rural areas in particular, to strengthen women's participation in environmental protection and decision-making.
- Expand international exchanges and cooperation in the work for women; enhance the participation of Chinese women in international affairs, to promote world peace, progress and development.
(2) Laws and sectoral policies
- Make known to the general public the role and achievements of women in economic development and social progress through the press and publishing, radio, film and TV, and literature and arts, with emphasis on outstanding model women.
- Intensify the management of the cultural market, and allow neither pornography nor any product that tarnishes the personal dignity of women in publicity media, advertisements, and literature and arts.
- Create more conditions and opportunities that allow women to get more involved in the press and in the field of publicity, promoting women's extensive participation in the management programming of, education, training, in and researches of the mass media;endeavor to increase women's share of the media resources. - Further enhance family virtues, and encourage family relations that are democratic, equal, and respectful for women and older people and care for the young; encourage scientific and healthy ways of life, and the sharing of family responsibilities between husband and wife.
- Intensify comprehensive environmental conservation and management in the urban areas, to reduce the risks to women from identified environmental hazards at home, in the work place and in other environments, and to increase the rates of garbage innocent disposal and sewage centralized-disposal.
- Integrate the construction of tap-water works and the building of sanitary toilets in the rural areas into the programs for the development of small towns and cities; make efforts to ensure that water is available and accessible to a greater proportion of the people living in the rural water-lacking areas, and that safe drinking-water is available and accessible to a greater proportion of the rural people; strengthen technical guidance in the building of sanitary toilets, and seek to ensure the availability and accessibility of sanitary toilets to a greater proportion of the people in the rural areas.
- Strengthen awareness among women about environmental protection, disseminate basic knowledge of environmental protection to a greater proportion of women, guide women to take an active part in the protection of ecological balance, and encourage women to change their ways of life and production that are harmful to the environment; preserve the sources of drinking water, prevent and control agricultural chemical pollution, and develop ecological agriculture and green industries; encourage green consumption.
(3) Social security and services
- Establish in the urban areas an insurance system that mainly includes basic old-age insurance, basic medical insurance, and relevant commercial insurance, social relief and social welfare; work to ensure that old-age support is provided in the rural areas, by the family basically, and make efforts to expand the coverage of social old-age security.
- Make more efforts to build more cultural and sports centers for older people, and ensure to enrich the cultural life of older women.
- Give priority to the development of public services in local communities that have a direct relevance to the family life of local people, and introduce measures to promote socialized services for household work, with a view to gradually increasing the amount of time that women may budget for their own pursuits.
Organization and Implementation
1. The National Working Committee on Children and Women ( NWCCW ) under the State Council is responsible for the organization of the implementation of PDCW. All relevant departments under the State Council and social organizations should formulate their implementing measures in accordance with PDCW and their respective responsibilities.
2. Local governments at all levels should, according to their actual local conditions, formulate and integrate their programs for the development of women in their localities into their plans for local economic and social development, seeking to ensure a unified and coordinated arrangement, and include the implementation of PDCW into their agenda and into the appraisal of achievements made by their main leaders and responsible persons at their posts.
3. Mechanisms for the implementation of PDCW should be set up and strengthened. All relevant departments under the State Council and social organizations are required to report their implementation of PDCW to NWCCW on a yearly basis. All local working committees for women and children should put in place their corresponding work and reporting systems respectively. Researches should be strengthened, and classified guidance and advance demonstrations should be developed and applied as ways of work. The implementation of PDCW should be followed timely, and successful practices should be summed up and be spread out. Theoretic dimension in women's studies should be emphasized.
4. Governments at all levels should make proper arrangement of funds needed for the implementation of PDCW according to their financial capacity. Various channels should be explored in fund-raising, and major efforts should be geared towards women's development and advancement in poverty-stricken areas and areas inhabited by ethnic groups.
Monitoring and Evaluation
1. The implementation of PDCW will be monitored and evaluated at several levels. Comprehensive statistics about women's development will be enhanced, sex-disaggregated indicators will be increased, and a sex-disaggregated database will be built and strengthened. Efforts will be made to ensure the collection, processing, feedback and exchange of the information on the implementation of PDCW. The situation of women's development and its trends will be analyzed, and the results of the implementation of PDCW will be evaluated, with a view to providing basis for the formulation of further programs and for further decision-making.
2. Systems for monitoring of women's situation will be established at the national and provincial levels, with practical, feasible, scientific and standard programs for monitoring and evaluation, to ensure a comprehensive and dynamic monitoring of women's development. The statistical indicators disaggregated by sex designed for PDCW will be included in the state statistical system and in the routine statistics and statistical surveys undertaken by all other relevant departments. Institutions for labor supervision, public health monitoring, educational guidance, statistics evaluation and legal supervision will be set up and reinforced, and mechanisms for monitoring will be improved, to ensure an effective implementation of PDCW.
3. There will be a regular reporting and evaluation system. All government departments and social organizations that are members of NWCCW and all other relevant departments are required to submit their reports on data obtained from monitoring and on the implementation of the major objectives on a yearly basis to the NWCCW Office and the National Bureau of Statistics. All reported data obtained from monitoring will be analyzed, and the implementation of PDCW will be evaluated. At the national level, monitoring and evaluations will be undertaken on a yearly, an every three-to-five-year periodic and a ten-year end-term basis.
4. Institutions for monitoring and evaluation will be set up. A leading group for monitoring and evaluation will be organized by NWCCW, responsible for the approval of programs for monitoring and evaluation, and for the formulation of countermeasures accordingly.
Under the leading group for monitoring and evaluation, there will be two task forces, one for statistics and monitoring and the other for evaluation.
The task force for statistics and monitoring, composed of relevant departments, with the National Bureau of Statistics taking the lead, has the following responsibilities: to define statistical indicators disaggregated by sex for monitoring of the implementation of PDCW, bring forward key indicators to be monitored, identify monitoring methods, collect data from monitoring, set up a sex-disaggregated data base and work to strengthen it, submit to NWCCW a report on statistics and monitoring of women's situation throughout the country, and to guide the work of statistics and monitoring in all localities and areas.
The task force for evaluation, with NWCCW Office taking the lead, is composed of experts recommended by relevant departments. It has the following responsibilities: to formulate programs for inspection and monitoring, evaluate the report/reports on monitoring, put forward opinions and recommendations to address major and difficult issues, undertake periodic evaluations and submit an evaluation report/reports to NWCCW, and to guide all localities and areas in their inspection and evaluation of the implementation of PDCW.
Corresponding institutions and systems for monitoring and evaluation should also be established in all localities and areas, to ensure a timely, accurate and all-round reflection of the implementation of PDCW and local programs for the development of women.
