Date:
Edited and printed by the All-China Women’s Federation with donations
from UNDP
Source: All-China Women’s Federation with donations from UNDP
Subject: women and development
Text:
Forward
1.
The women are a great force in creating the human
civilization and promoting social development. The development level of women is
an important index for social development as well as an important yardstick to
measure social progress. To promote the progress and development of Chinese
women is the common task of the governments at all levels, the relevant
departments, social organizations and the Chinese people as a whole. With a view
to further promoting the development of Chinese women, the Program for the
Development of the Chinese Women (1995-2000) is hereby stipulated (hereinafter
referred to as the Program).
2.
Over the 46 years since the founding of the People's
Republic of China, the cause of the Chinese women has made achievements that
have caught the attention of the world. A whole set of laws, administrative
decrees and local regulations, based on the Constitution of the People's
Republic of China and the PRC Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests
of Women, such as the PRC Marriage Law, the PRC Inheritance Law, the PRC Labor
Law, the PRC Law on Maternal and Child Care and Regulations on Labor Protection
of Women Workers, that are aimed at protecting the rights and interests of women
and promoting the development of women has basically come into being?
corresponding organs have been established to protect the rights and interests
of women; and powerful measures have been adopted to effectively promote the
development of the cause of women. Over the 17 years since the inception of the
open-and-reform policy, the educational level of Chinese women has been steadily
rising; the number of women employed has considerably shot up; their livelihood
has improved with each passing day; and their status in society and the family
and their participation in the management of the national and social affairs
have steadily grown. The broad masses of women have plunged themselves into the
open-and-reform efforts and the modernization drive and made tremendous
contributions to economic growth and social progress. All these have shown the
superiority of the socialist system and laid a solid foundation for the further
development of the Chinese women.
However, as China is a developing nation, well restricted by
the economic and social development level and handicapped by influences of old
ideas, the educational level of women and their participation in social growth
are not very high; the equality of both sexes legally stipulated has not yet
been fully implemented; there are still prejudices of women in society; the
livelihood of the women in poverty-stricken areas needs further improvement. The
task for the development of the Chinese women is still quite arduous.
The world today is undergoing a historical change and
international competition is getting increasingly tenser. The competition in
economy, culture, science and technology in the world is fundamentally a
competition of the quality of a nation as a whole. The quality of women affects
the quality of a nation and the development level of women so does the
comprehensive strength of a nation. At a time as the 21st century is coming, the
question of women has become one of the focuses of international attention and
to work to get equality, development and peace with actions has become an
irreversible tide of the international community. The Chinese government has
made solemn pledges for the observance of relevant international conventions
relating to women's rights and development.
3.
Under the guidance of Deng Xiaoping's theory of building
socialism with Chinese characteristics, the Chinese party and the state have
determined that there are three strategic steps before basic modernization is
attained and explicitly stated that the second strategic target will have to be
attained by the end of this century. The coming few years are an important
period of time not only for China's open-and-reform and modernization efforts
but also for the progress and development of Chinese women. In the coming few
years, the task for the development of women is: mobilize and organize the women
of all nationalities to plunge into the open-and-reform and socialist
modernization efforts, comprehensively raise the quality of women, safeguard the
rights and interests of women in accordance with the law and further improve the
status of women. It is imperative for the broad masses of women to display the
spirit of self-respect, self-confidence, independence and self-reliance and work
to attain their own progress and development in the course of promoting social
development. The governments at all levels, relevant departments, the social
organizations and the enterprises and firms must fully recognize the importance
of promoting women's participation and progress, work in coordination and adopt
powerful measures to endure that all the targets as set in the Program are
realized.
Major Targets
4.
The general target for the development of the Chinese
women by the end of this century is: The quality of the women as a whole will be
markedly improved and the right of equality of women as granted by the law in
political , economic, cultural, social and family affairs will be further
implemented in the course of comprehensive participation in economic
construction and social development and in the management of the state and
social affairs. The concrete targets for the development of women are:
(1). Improve the participation of women in the
decision-making and management of state and social affairs.
-Actively work to realize that the government leadership at
all levels has women and the percentage of the female sex in the leadership of
government departments will be greatly raised.
-Among the members of the leadership of the sectors,
departments and enterprises and firms where women workers are concentrated there
should be more female ones.
(2). Organize women to take an active part in the
open-and-reform and modernization efforts so as to promote the development of
social productive forces.
-Increase the employment of women and expand their areas of
employment in the course, of establishing a socialist market economy and
readjusting the urban and rural industrial structure and developing the tertiary
industry.
-It is not permitted to refuse to employ women on account of
sex, nor is it permitted to raise the standards of employment for women, except
for the jobs and positions which are unsuitable for women according to the state
regulations, so as to guarantee the women's right of equality with men in
employment.
(3). Guarantee the labor rights of women.
-All enterprises (including foreign-funded ventures, private
firms and rural industrial establishments) must conscientiously implement the
PRC Labor Law and relevant regulations for the labor protection of women
workers, protect women's safety and health in work and try to improve the
working conditions of women workers.
The principle of equal work for equal pay of both sexes is
practised in the city and the countryside.
-It will be basically in practice to use social funds to
cover the charges for child bearing of women workers in the country.
(4). Work hard to develop women's education and raise the
scientific and technical level of the women.
-Gradually increase the percentage of the female sex in
accepting education at all levels and in all categories of education and raise
the quality of women workers in an all-round way and actively train special
technical personnel of all kinds of the female sex.
-Popularize basically the nine-near compulsory education
throughout the country, decrease the rate of school-age girls who are unable to
attend schools and the rate of dropouts of school-age girls and control such
rates below 2%.
Try to make 3 million illiterate women literate every year
and it is hoped that by the end of this century there will not be young and
middle-aged women illiterates in the country.
-Develop energetically vocational education, professional
training and practical technical training at all levels and in all categories to
raise women's competence in job hunting.
(5). Further improve the health of women and guarantee their
right over family planning.
-Improve the service ability and quality of the maternal and
child care centers.
-Try to make every one in the city and the countryside to
enjoy health care, including fine reproduction-related health care.
-85% of the pregnant women and the women who give birth to
young in the country will receive health care and health education.
-95% of babies in the countryside will be delivered with new
midwifery.
-Raise the rate of rural women who give birth to young under
hospital conditions and decrease the rate of maternal mortality by 50% with the
figure of 1990 as the base.
Inoculate 85% of the pregnant women and women of the
child-bearing age against spasmotoxin in areas where tetanus has a high
incidence of toll and eliminate the infection of tetanus by new-born babies.
(6). Encourage establishment of civil, harmonious and stable
families with equality between the husband and the wife.
-Carry on the fine traditions of the Chinese nation,
cultivate the socialist moral code and establish ties of equality, unity, love
and mutual assistance within the family and between the neighbors.
-Advocate common share of household chores and the
bringing-up of children by the husband and wife alike. Make use of various forms
to disseminate the knowledge and experiences among the parents concerning the
right way to educate the young.
-Oppose bigamy and the taking of concubines.
-Resolutely stop acts to interfere in matrimonial freedom.
(7). Effectively contain violence on women and the criminal
acts of abducting and trading women and prostitution.
(8). Pay great attention to and try to help in the
development of the women in border and remote areas, poverty-stricken areas and
areas inhabited by ethnic minorities. The problem of subsistence for the women
in the poverty-stricken areas will be basically solved by the end of this
century.
-Carry out cultural and technical training among the 10
million women in the poverty-stricken areas and help them to acquire at least
one practical skill.
-There will be one female agro-technician or technician in
animal husbandry for each village.
-Help 200,000 farmers get rid of poverty and make them as
models for others.
-Develop 20,000 economic entities that will employ 800,000
poor women.
(9). Improve the social environment for the development of
women and raise their quality in life.
-Advocate civil and progressive perception of women in
society at large and cultivate a social moral code of respecting and offering
protection to women and the spirit among women of self-respect, self-confidence,
independence and self-reliance.
-Do a good job of community services and develop nurseries
and kindergartens and household services.
Protect the special interests of the underage, old and
disabled women. It is forbidden to employ girls under the age of 16. Run well
all kinds of welfare centers and old people's homes and apartments. Try all
possible means to help disabled women to recover and get rid of poverty.
(10). Expand the friendly exchanges of Chinese women with
women of the various countries to promote world peace.
(11). Establish a mechanism of dynamic studies of women's
status, data gathering and information communications.
-Establish a national women's data bank.
-Set up classified women's statistics indexes in the state
statistics system.
Policies and Measures
5.
Political rights and participation in decision-making
- Improve the awareness of women's political rights through
all means to enable women to participate on an equal footing in the management
of national and social affairs and in making decisions relating major issues.
- The governments at all levels, while formulating policies
and making plans, have to listen to suggestions and demands of the women's
organizations at all levels , give full consideration to the special interest of
women and guarantee their legitimate rights and interests.
- Do a good job of training and selecting women cadres. It is
necessary to work out relevant plans, have them checked regularly and
implemented at all levels.
- Strengthen training and education of women cadres and raise
their ability in-participating in political affairs and leadership.
6.
Employment and labor protection
- Actively develop areas and means of employment suitable to
women's characteristics and provide more job opportunities for women.
- Develop services in job hunting and relevant consultancy
services to guide women in their hunting for jobs.
- Actively develop diversified rural economies and rural
industries to create more job opportunities for women and organize in a planned
way the flux of the labor service of women from poor-stricken areas to other
areas.
- Improve the working conditions of women workers in private,
rural industrial and foreign-funded firms and strengthen labor protection. It is
forbidden to assign women to do jobs that are not suitable for the female sex.
Establish and improve labor protection for women workers; establish a system of
regular general physical and gynecological check-ups for women workers;
strengthen scientific research in goods relating to women's labor protection to
constantly raise the level of labor protection.
- Actively carry out labor supervision and ferret out and
punish those acts that are in violation of women's labor legitimate rights.
Resolutely curb the firms from terminating the labor contracts with women in
pregnancy, lying-in and breast-feeding, from forcing women workers to engage in
super-intensity labor and from violating the principle of equal pay for equal
labor for both sexes and guarantee that women workers work in environments that
do not bring harms to their body and mind and are safe. The units and
individuals that employ girls under 16 years of age will be punished legally.
- Make labor protection of women workers as part of the
responsibility of the leaders of a unit for safe production and part of the
important content to assess their work. Strengthen the publicity work among the
women workers of the decrees and policies relating to labor protection and raise
their awareness of self-protection.
- Reform the social security system for the childbearing
workers. Steps will be taken to cover the childbearing insurance fees with
socially coordinated funds instead of with funds from each firm. This reform
will spread from state-owned firms to all firms.
7.
Education and vocational training
-The governments at all levels must implement conscientiously
the Rules for the Elimination of Illiteracy promulgated by the State Council.
The focus will be laid on young and middle-aged illiterate women in remote and
border areas, poverty-stricken areas and areas inhabited by ethnic minority
groups. The work will be conducted in light of the practical situation of uneven
economic and cultural development in each locality and guidance will be offered
according to each classified category.
-The governments at all levels must conscientiously implement
the Law on Compulsory Education of the People's Republic of China and popularize
compulsory education as part of the efforts to develop the productive forces and
overcome old habits and ideas and create a favorable social environment for
girls to accept formal education. Assistance in terms of policy and funds will
be rendered to those remote and borders areas, poverty-stricken areas and areas
inhabited by ethnic minority groups. All forms of education such as special
girls' training classes will be run to facilitate the attendance to school by
girls in poverty-stricken areas. The governments at all levels should actively
help solve the practical difficulties the girls of poor families face in their
education.
-Raise step by step the percentage of the female sex in
receiving intermediate technical and specialized education and higher education.
In enrolment of students, the intermediate technical schools and institutions of
higher learning must abide by the principle of equality for both sexes, except
for the specialties the state has otherwise defined.
-Make full use of all kinds of existing adult educational and
vocational schools and, in light of the need for social development and the
characteristics of women, carry out vocational education or training in a
variety of forms and at different levels among the women in the city and the
countryside.
8.
Health care
-Establish maternity and child care health centers at all
levels. Strengthen the construction of the gynecological departments at township
clinics, improve their conditions and facilities to make them able to handle
delivery and emergency aids. Work hard to raise the rate of rural women who go
to maternity hospitals for delivery and have more-rural women who stay at home
for childbirth receive the new method of midwifery. By the year of 2000, 85% of
the practitioners of the township maternity and child care centers will be
trained in gynecological emergency aid and gynecological skills and 80% of those
at the village level in the poverty-stricken areas will be trained.
-Establish a supervisory network of maternity and child care
and a regular reporting system. Establish and perfect the reporting system
concerning maternity mortality and the mortality of the newborn babies and
babies with discernible disability.
-Enforce systematic health care for pregnant women and
lying-in women. Prevent the common mother, fetus and perinatal baby diseases in
pregnancy, lying- in and puerperium. Popularize resuscitation for the newborn
and lower the mortality of early new-born babies.
-Increase the rate of women who receive health education. In
light of the different physiological and psychological characteristics of
underage girls, young girls, women in the reproductive and regulatory period and
in climacterium and old age, respective health education will be conducted to
disseminate scientific knowledge concerning sex, self-administered health care
and child rearing and promote the mental and physical health of the women and
bring into full play the role of women in family health care.
-Check women's diseases in a sifting manner and carry out
work to prevent and treat them among women, especially among those women in the
countryside and those diseases that hit their health most seriously.
-Inoculate the pregnant or lying-in women and women of
child-bearing age against spasmotoxin in areas where there is a high rate of
new-born that sustain tetanus. Popularize knowledge about children's planned
inoculation and further reduce the incidence of relevant diseases and mortality
rate.
-Add iodine to table salt or ask women to take iodine pills
to ensure the physical need of the women for iodine. By the year of 2000, 95% of
those newly married or pregnant women that need take iodine will have it. The
injuries to the intelligence children sustain due to lack of iodine during the
period of pregnancy or breast-breeding will be basically eliminated.
-Improve the ecological environment and by treating drinking
water, diverting river water and transforming stoves control the damages to the
health of women in areas where the drinking water has a high content of
fluorine. Provide more and better medical care to those patients of dental
fluorosis and fluorosis of bone.
9.
Family planning
-Carry out the campaign of publicity about population and
family planning among the people in a broad, deep-going and sustained way.
Publicize China's current basic status and its basic national policies among the
women so as to guide them in changing their old ideas about marriage and child
bearing and fostering new ideas about late marriage and late, less and better
childbirth and about equality of both sexes.
-Popularize the scientific knowledge among the broad masses
of women about contraception, birth control, eugenics and maternal and child
care. Actively promote consultancy concerning genetic diseases', maternal and
child care and the technical check-ups of the newborn. By the year of 2000, the
congenitally diseased and disabled babies will be cut by 50% as compared with
the 1990 figure.
-Improve the birth control techniques. Actively study and
develop new, safe, effective and convenient contraceptive drugs and tools and
birth control techniques. Improve and perfect the existing contraceptive
techniques and methods, reduce their side-effects and the incidence of
complications, raise their acceptability and safeguard the reproductive health
of women. By the year of 2000, the incidence of the complicating diseases
arising from birth control-related operations will be controlled below 10 per
10,000.
-Establish and perfect the grassroots network of birth
control technical service and supply of contraceptive drugs and tools that is
convenient to the masses, provide all kinds of safe, effective and convenient
contraceptive drugs and tools and birth control technical services for the
husband and wife of the child-bearing age to opt, actively carry out guidance in
contraception and birth control and raise the rate of popularization of
contraception and birth control and improve its effectiveness.
10. Legal protection
-Formulate practical and operationable administrative decrees
or corresponding policies and measures, in light of the Constitution of the
People's Republic of China and the Law on Guaranteeing Women's Rights and
Interests of the People's. Republic of China, to make the laws regarding the
safeguard of women's rights and interests more feasible.
-Improve the quality and strengthen the contingent of the
legal and administrative law enforcement per- sonnel and enhance leadership and
strict supervision to ensure that the laws and decrees in the safeguard of the
women's rights and interests are implemented in an all-round way. The acts that
are not in strict observance of the law or in violation of the law and the
rights and interests of women will be legally prosecuted and punished.
-The Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China and
relevant other laws and decrees will be continuously publicized in a deep-going
and sustained way all over the country, in the rural areas and border and remote
areas and poverty-stricken areas in particular. Strengthen the registration and
management of marriages and adopt effective measures to curb such illegal
marriages as early, mercenary or consanguineous ones.
-Protect the personal rights of women and their rights over
legal property and investigate and punish in time the civil cases that are in
violation of the rights and interests of women.
-Deal severe blows to such criminal acts as abduction, trade,
abandonment, mal-treatment, persecution and insult of women and safeguard
women's personal safety and dignity. Resolutely ban prostitution and eliminate
evil social phenomena.
-Seriously investigate and deal accordingly with such
criminal acts as killing, trading and cruelly injuring new-born baby girls.
Strictly forbid fetus sex appraisal with modern medical means for non-medical
purposes and deal heavy blows to such criminal acts as violating birth control.
-Make use of various channels and forms to carry out in a
broad and deep-going way the campaign of publicity about legality and strengthen
the awareness of legality of the whole people; it is especially necessary to
guide and help the broad masses of women to foster solid awareness of legality
and consciously use the law as a weapon to safeguard their legitimate rights and
interests.
-Protect the rights of women to prosecute and appeal. Improve
the work to receive and handle the complaints filed by women and guard against
shifting responsibility to others and long delay and indecision. Open legal
consultancy and agency services to help women to solve their legal difficulties
and those women who are wronged to have justice upheld.
11.
Improve the social environment for the development of
women
-Publicize in society at large the great role of women in
creating human civilization and propelling social development; equality of both
sexes in personality, dignity , rights and status; and the women who have the
spirit of self-respect, self-confidence, independence and self-reliance. Curb
the practice to depreciate or portray in an insulting way the images of women in
TV, movies, books, journals and the press. Change the social mood of being
prejudiced against women and improve the awareness of all the citizens of the
legitimate rights and interests of women.
-Protect the status of women in the family in accordance with
the law and resolutely curb family violence. Strengthen cultural construction in
the family and improve the cultural quality of the members of the family.
Continue to carry out the cultural construction of the family that integrates
education in ideology, moral standards and civic virtues with studies of
scientific and technical knowledge, an 'active family cultural life and family
economic improvement, foster a civilized, scientific and progressive life style
and work for a turn for the better of the mood of the family and the general
atmosphere of society at large.
-Strengthen the construction of the venues for women's
training and social activities. Actively organize the women to engage in
activities to learn cultural and scientific knowledge and other healthy cultural
and sports activities.
-Continue to strengthen community service and develop
nurseries, kindergartens and household labor services to further enlighten the
burden of professional women for household chores.
-Carry out psychological consultancy for women to raise their
psychological quality.
-Develop, study and popularize special goods and tonics that
are conducive to the physical and mental health of the women.
-Render assistance to the welfare facilities in the provinces
and do a good job of supporting those orphaned and disabled underage girls and
windowed old women without legally obligatory supporters, labor capability nor
income for livelihood. Build new or expand the existing welfare centers, old
people's apartments and homes for the above-said women and equip them with
necessary living, medical and convalescent facilities.
-Publicize among women the basic national policy of
environmental protection and the government supports and encourages the efforts
of women in running eco-agricultural projects, March 8th green projects and
projects for soil conservation and renders them active assistance.
12.
Help develop the cause of the women in the
poverty-stricken areas
-Carry out training in practical skills to improve the
capability of women to get rid of poverty for a better life.
-Develop the get-rid-of-poverty projects that are suitable
for women.
-Pay special attention to the livelihood of the disabled
women and cultivate in society at large the fine moral code of understanding,
respecting, caring and rendering assistance to the disabled people. Arrange in a
proper way the livelihood, convalescence, education and employment of disabled
women.
Organization and Implementation
13.
The Women's and Children's Working Committee of the State
Council is responsible for the implementation of this Program. The relevant
State Council departments and the various social organizations, in accordance
with the requirements set in this Program and in light of the responsibilities
of each, formulate detailed plans and are held responsible for their
implementation.
14.
Implementation of this Program is the bounden and
important duty of the governments at all levels. The people's government in each
province (autonomous region and municipality) must, under the guidance of this
Program and in light of local concrete conditions, formulate its own plan for
the development of women in each locality and incorporate it into the local
general plan for economic and social development and have it arranged and
implemented in a unified and coordinated way. It is necessary to establish a
system of targeted responsibility and make the implementation of the Program as
part of the content to appraise the work of the main leaders of the government
and relevant departments of a province (autonomous region, municipality),
prefecture (city), county and township.
15.
The governments at all levels must increase step by step
the funds for the cause of the women. Strengthen and perfect the construction of
the socialized service system and support the women in their economic activities
in terms of materials, information, technique and loans. Encourage people in all
walks of life to sponsor the cause of the women.
Supervision and Appraisal
16.
Establish and perfect the organs of labor, health,
educational and legal supervision and statistics appraisal and perfect the
mechanism of supervision to ensure the implementation of the general targets of
the Program.
17.
Strengthen the national comprehensive statistics on the development
of women, establish women's data bank, add the sex statistics index, do a good
job of the gathering, sorting out, feed-back and exchange of information
concerning women to provide basis for development tendency forecast, plan
formulation, scientific decision making and checks and appraisals.
18.
Establish a national women's status monitoring system and
formulate feasible and scientifically defined monitoring and appraisal plans so
as to monitor women's status in an all-round and dynamic way.
19.
It is necessary to establish a system of regular checks
and examinations so as to get acquainted with and assess the implementation of
the Program, find problems in time and take corresponding measures to handle
them. In the process of implementing the Program, it is imperative to adopt a
variety of methods of investigation and study to reflect the development and
change in women's status in an all-round, systematic and timely way and carry
out appraisals on special key topics and intermediate appraisals. By the end of
this century, a terminal appraisal will be made and the experiences in
implementing the Program will be summarized and appraised and a program for the
development of the women in the 21st century will be formulated.
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