[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
WOMEN IN A CHANGING CHINA
=======================================================================
ROUNDTABLE
before the
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 8, 2010
__________
Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China
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C O N T E N T S
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Page
Opening statement of Douglas Grob, Cochairman's Senior Staff
Member, Congressional-Executive Commission on China............ 1
Story, Abigail, Research Associate and Manager of Special
Projects, Congressional-Executive Commission on China.......... 2
de Silva de Alwis, Rangita, Director of International Human
Rights Policy, Wellesley Centers for Women..................... 3
Zhao, Katherine, student, Division of Social Sciences, University
of Chicago and former Fullbright Fellow........................ 6
Lagon, Mark, former Ambassador-at-Large and Director, Office to
Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP), U.S.
Department of State............................................ 8
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements
de Silva de Alwis, Rangita....................................... 26
Zhao, Katherine.................................................. 28
Submission for the Record
From the East Asia Law Review, Volume 5, Issue 2 (2010),
``Opportunities and Challenges for Gender-Based Legal Reform in
China,'' by Rangita de Silva de Alwis.......................... 31
WOMEN IN A CHANGING CHINA
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MONDAY, MARCH 8, 2010
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China,
Washington, DC.
The roundtable was convened, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m.,
in room B-318, Rayburn House Office Building, Douglas Grob,
Cochairman's Senior Staff Member, presiding.
Also present: Charlotte Oldham-Moore, Staff Director; Kara
Abramson, Advocacy Director; Abigail C. Story, Research
Associate and Manager of Special Projects; and Anna Brettell,
Senior Advisor, Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
OPENING STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS GROB, COCHAIRMAN'S SENIOR STAFF
MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Mr. Grob. Well, good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for
attending today's Congressional-Executive Commission on China
[CECC] roundtable on ``Women in a Changing China.'' My name is
Doug Grob, and I am Cochairman Sander Levin's Senior Staff
Member on the Commission staff. I would like to recognize
Charlotte Oldham-Moore, Staff Director of the Commission, in
the audience. We would like to welcome you here on behalf of
Chairman Byron Dorgan and Cochairman Levin.
I will give a brief introduction and then turn it over to
my colleague, Abigail Story, our staff specialist and research
associate on women's issues. Then we will turn it over to the
panelists, who each will have seven minutes to speak. Then
we'll open the floor to questions from all of you.
The topic of today's roundtable is women's issues in China,
a fitting focus for today, International Women's Day. China
ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women in 1980, and 30 years later we are
holding this roundtable today in part to ask, what has been the
impact of this commitment, and what progress has been made,
both at the central level and local levels in China, toward
greater protection of women's rights. We hope to attain a
deeper understanding today of what specific challenges remain.
As this Commission has reported, most recently in our 2009
Annual Report--and I invite you all to take a copy from the
table outside--Chinese officials continue to pursue policies
that aim to protect women's rights, in line with China's
international commitments. There have been improvements in
efforts to combat sexual harassment and domestic violence in
China, and there has been significant development of a legal
framework to support and institutionalize those efforts.
Chinese authorities also have promoted women's employment and
taken steps to eliminate gender-based discrimination in the
workplace, which remains a widespread problem. We'll hear more
about the challenges facing women in China from our panelists
today.
I will now turn the floor over to Abigail Story, our staff
specialist and research associate on women's issues, to
introduce our panel.
STATEMENT OF ABIGAIL C. STORY, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE AND MANAGER
OF SPECIAL PROJECTS
Ms. Story. Thank you, Doug. I will briefly introduce the
witnesses; however, I encourage you to take a look at their
full bios on the sheet outside.
Also, I just want to take a moment to remind you to turn
your cell phones to vibrate if you haven't done so already.
First, is Rangita de Silva de Alwis. Ms. de Silva de Alwis
is director of International Human Rights Policy Programs at
the Wellesley Centers for Women. Rangita has worked with a
network of civil society and government organizations to
develop innovative women's rights and human rights initiatives
around the world. Her work focuses on using international human
rights norms to guide law and reform initiatives.
To my right is Katherine Zhao. Ms. Zhao is a graduate
student at the University of Chicago and a Boren Fellow. Her
current research focuses on popular contention and protests in
China and cross-border human trafficking. She spent the 2008-
2009 academic year in China as a Fulbright Fellow, examining
women's access to justice and social services. She also served
previously as a Senior Research Associate at the CECC.
Also to my right is Ambassador Mark Lagon. From 2007 to
2009, Dr. Lagon served as Ambassador-at-Large and Director of
the
Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the
Department of State, statutorily chairing the U.S. Government's
Interagency Group on TIP Policy. Until February 2010, Dr. Mark
Lagon was Executive Director and CEO of the leading anti-human
trafficking nonprofit agency, Polaris Project, headquartered in
Washington, DC.
Mr. Grob. Thank you, Abbey.
We'll get started now. I just would like to preface the
panelists' remarks by saying that we have asked our
distinguished panel here to discuss women's issues in China
from three perspectives. First, we have asked Rangita de Silva
de Alwis to discuss gender-based legal reform in China in the
context of the Chinese Government's international commitments.
Ms. Zhao will then speak about the specific grassroots impact
of government regulations, as well as the impact of general
social conditions on the basic rights of women in the home, in
the workplace, and in accessing public services.
Finally, we have asked Ambassador Lagon to discuss China's
efforts and the challenges China faces in the ongoing battle
against human trafficking. We are just very privileged and
honored to have the three of you here with us today, and thank
you for joining us.
I would like to turn the floor over now to Rangita de Silva
de Alwis.
STATEMENT OF RANGITA de SILVA de ALWIS, DIRECTOR OF
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS POLICY, WELLESLEY CENTERS FOR WOMEN
Ms. de Silva de Alwis. The Beijing Women's Conference in
1995 and its progeny, the Beijing Platform of Action, marked a
watershed event in the history of local and global women's
movements. The clarion call to take Beijing back home
resonated, both locally and globally, and reverberated in
China.
Fifteen years after this historic event and 30 years after
the landmark Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women [CEDAW], is an important political
moment for us to reflect on this twin legacy and how this has
catalyzed gender-based lawmaking and mobilized women's groups
in China to hold stakeholders accountable to both the letter
and the spirit of the guarantees enshrined in the CEDAW.
In the final analysis, as a universally recognized norm-
setting
instrument, the CEDAW has become a powerful benchmark for
women's rights groups in China to monitor the implementation of
existing legislation. Most importantly, as a universal bill of
rights for women, the CEDAW legitimizes and augments the voices
of Chinese women's rights groups in their call for law reform
and practice in China. These calls in China are a call of
reforms taking place in analogous areas in other countries,
however, international norms are sometimes a double-edged
sword.
Despite the fact that they are powerful tools to advocate
for, and monitor, women's rights, China and the Chinese state
party, too, has cloaked weak lawmaking in the garb of
international norms. In spite of the rhetoric of the Chinese
state, which emphasized at the CEDAW committee hearings in
2006, that the new reforms to the law were governed by the
CEDAW, theCEDAW concluding observations made after the fifth
and sixth state party report in 2006 were very similar too, and
reinforced prior concluding observations made after the third
and the fourth state party report in 1999. This leads one to
question the actual impact of the concluding observations on
the state. What in fact had been adopted were the forms, and
not the substance, of international human rights norms.
Juxtaposed with the state's change-resistant articulation
of women's rights, China's women's rights practitioners'
innovative views of international women's rights norms has
powerful transformative potential.
The 2005 reforms on the law on the Protection of Women's
Rights and Interests of 1999 was a milestone in women's rights
advocacy in China and it spawned a panoply of gender-based law
reform initiatives, both locally and nationally.
The new and incubating developments in gender and the law
in China are the result of reform initiatives that have sparked
local to global engagements.
First, the new law manifests a marked movement away from
paternalistic notions on the protection of women and embraces a
more human-rights-based concept of the empowerment of women.
Second, and in direct consequence of the ambiguity and the
aspirational nature of the national laws, has led women's
groups to redirect their efforts to mobilize strong guidelines
at the provincial level, thus creating greater opportunities
for the vindication of women's rights at the local level.
Although domestic violence has now been clearly prohibited
in China, China still lacks national legislation on domestic
violence. The existing prohibitions do not harmonize with
international guarantees, however, women's groups have again
been creative in their search for redress and have seized for
themselves the mantle of change; some of the most widespread
new developments in the area of domestic violence law and
policymaking, and women's rights groups have helped shape a
trail of reform in this area.
The Supreme People's Court's Trial Guide to Domestic
Violence-Related Cases in 2008 breaks new ground by providing
protection orders in pilot courts under limited circumstances.
Leading women's rights advocates hail this as a small step in
law theory, but a big step in judicial practice. The challenge
now is to expand the protective orders beyond the nine pilots
and push the boundaries of its scope.
Informed and animated by international guarantees and new
developments in domestic violence lawmaking around the world,
the anti-domestic violence network of China has developed a
strong experts' draft on domestic violence. This experts' draft
is a blueprint for national law reform and embraces many of the
international law definitions of domestic violence. However,
deep-seated traditional mores, such as son preference and
devaluation of the girl child, are inextricably interrelated to
violence against women and must be captured in any narrative on
women's rights law reform and practice.
Despite more women in employment, feminization of part-time
work, gender bias in advertisements and recruitment, sex
segregation in employment, the commodification and
objectification of women, ghettoization of women in lower
ranking employment, and the over-inclusion of protections in
the law that stereotype and subordinate women, family
responsibility-based discrimination, and cross-cutting and
multiple forms of discrimination continue to disadvantage and
subordinate women in China. Differential retirement practices
that force both blue collar and professional women to retire 10
years ahead of their male counterparts are some of the biggest
threats to economic development in China.
The law of employment promotion, in 2008, broke new ground
by outlawing discrimination on the grounds of nationality,
race, gender, religious belief, et cetera. The labor contract
law, which came of age in 2008, too, reflects a paradigm change
in labor relations, as it articulates that a contract must be
based on principles of fairness, equality, and negotiated
consensus.
Despite these good-faith efforts, these laws have had a
disproportionate impact on women workers and more women have
been forced into part-time employment. The under-implementation
of these laws in a time of global economic strain is a threat
that runs through most laws.
In the absence of a national anti-discrimination law, anti-
discrimination scholars and practitioners in China have
developed a model anti-discrimination law based on ILO
[International Labour Organization] guidelines and other
international norms. This draft, known as the Experts' Draft on
Anti-Discrimination, outlaws discrimination based on multiple
grounds of discrimination, including nationality, gender,
religion, and sexual orientation. And these experts' drafts,
which are unique to China, are often blueprints for reform and
catalysts for action.
A similar experts' draft on sexual harassment and a sexual
harassment guidelines for companies are exciting new
developments initiated by Chinese scholars and once again
augment the call for international guarantees.
These dynamic initiatives by civil society scholars fill
the lacuna left by inoperable and hortatory laws. For example,
although the revised LPWRI, for the first time, outlawed sexual
harassment, this prohibition only remains aspirational.
The law does not provide a definition of sexual harassment,
nor the elements of the offense. So far, of the 19 national
cases that have gone to courts, not a single case has
articulated sexual harassment as a cause of action, but based a
claim for damage on other provisions in the law.
The face of poverty in China is that of a rural women. Due
to patriarchal norms, male-dominated village committees and
autonomous village committees' regulations, women who are
married out, divorced, widowed, or single are deprived of
access to land tenure or responsibility law. Here, too, women's
rights leaders have seized the opportunity for reform to call
for a form of judicial review of village committee rulings and
more egalitarian decisionmaking at the village levels to
amplify women's voices in community affairs.
In conclusion, although international human rights norms
are yet to be read directly into lawmaking or judicial
decisionmaking in China, women's rights advocates use these
norms as a model to inform their advocacy and to bolster their
arguments before a public or political forum.
To this extent, human rights norms have been important
building blocks of the emerging and evolving reform processes
on behalf of women in China. China's women's groups have
galvanized around the universally shared, rather than
unilaterally held, goals of the CEDAW. It has sparked the
process of transnational engagements and a more multilateral
and comparative approach to law and practice.
These internationalization processes have provided useful
interpretative tools and a litmus test to gauge the gap between
law and practice. In the final analysis, the rights' rhetoric
remains largely symbolic and is not always fully translated
into action. However, women's rights groups in China have
emerged and reinvented themselves as the true agents who ignite
debates that would otherwise lie dormant.
Though China's progress in women's rights lawmaking has not
delivered on all its promises, the journey continues and
Chinese women's groups are constantly challenging themselves to
find new and alternative ways to address unresolved issues, re-
imagining strategies, and finally to propel women's rights as
pivotal to the rule of law. Thank you.
Ms. Story. Thank you, Rangita.
I will now turn the floor over to Katherine Zhao.
[The prepared statement of Ms. de Silva de Alwis appears in
the appendix.]
STATEMENT OF KATHERINE ZHAO, DIVISION OF SOCIAL SCIENCES,
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO AND FORMER FULBRIGHT FELLOW
Ms. Zhao. I want to first thank the Commission for giving
me this opportunity to speak here today. Amid China's
transition from a socialist to a more market-based country,
there has been a host of social problems that has emerged that
has disproportionately affected women. An important question to
ask in this regard is: how has the Chinese state responded?
Building on Rangita's insightful analysis, I will address
three areas of progress, as well as four remaining challenges.
One area of progress is improved laws and policies. Within
the past 30 years, the central government has released various
national laws and policies that prohibit the violation of
women's rights. Yet, it is often local areas, such as Hunan
Province, that push legislative boundaries and anticipate
national legislation. For example, Hunan issued the first local
regulations related to domestic violence in 1996 and it issued
the first guiding opinions by a provincial high people's court
in 2009.
On a second level, there have been increased services,
awareness, and access to justice. For example, there have been
services in the form of hotlines, shelters, and activity
centers that provide vocational training for women. In addition
to greater public awareness, more women are using the courts
and other dispute resolution channels to seek redress for their
grievances. This has resulted in a small but growing number of
successful cases, including the first criminal case involving
sexual harassment.
On a third level, there have been advocacy efforts that
involve NGOs, scholars, women federation officials, and allies
within the state. For example, advocates began to notice an
increase in the use of violence by women against their
batterers. The Supreme People's Court, partly as a way to
provide alternatives and to allow for normal court proceedings,
introduced protection orders on a trial basis in 2008 in select
courts involving divorce cases.
The introduction of protection orders has further mobilized
advocates in their push for legislation against domestic
violence. Specifically, in January 2009, a woman seeking
divorce due to domestic violence was brutally assaulted by her
husband. Her brother had previously asked the municipal court
to issue a protection order on her behalf.
The court refused, citing the non-binding nature of the
trial project. This galvanized advocates to draft a judicial
interpretation expert proposal that would make protection
orders available
nationwide. Many advocates see the passage of the judicial
interpretation as a seat-warmer for the release of a long-
awaited anti-domestic violence law in China.
In the case of Hunan Province, which has issued the most
protection orders, active engagement by a variety of
stakeholders has played a pivotal role in the number and kinds
of protection orders that have been issued. For example, courts
have issued protection orders that go beyond prohibiting
violence, to specifying that the perpetrator must stay 200
meters away from the victim's residence, place of work, or her
family's place of residence.
At the same time, there are remaining challenges. For
example, despite written legislation, implementation lags.
Notwithstanding vague legislation, officials may ignore,
circumvent, or are not aware of certain legislation, especially
when work related to gender equality is not linked to a
performance assessment or promotion prospects.
Enterprises and other organizations, when faced with who
bears the cost of pregnancy and maternal leave, discriminate
against women at every stage of their employment. In other
words, the Chinese state has created inadequate structural
incentives and distribution of resources to enforce policy
related to gender equality.
Organizing bodies such as the All-China Women's Federation
exist, but they are under-staffed and have limited power. Some
provincial-level women's federation offices may only have four
or fewer staff members. In addition, some officials see
economic development and the preservation of the family as
incompatible with the promotion of women's rights, so the
former takes precedence.
Last, the lack of knowledge about legislation and services
that help women, even by women's federation officials,
reinforce the need to increase awareness. For example, the
existence of government-run shelters is sometimes intentionally
not publicized for fear that it will create demand that
surpasses capacity.
Second, another impediment to the realization of women's
rights involves Chinese legislation that unintentionally
affects women in a negative manner. For example, population
planning policies that allow the parents of a daughter to have
another child follow the
belief that daughters are not as good as sons. In this regard,
conducting a gender impact assessment might be helpful in
anticipating harmful effects of legislation.
A third challenge that remains is wider constitutional
controls on freedom of speech and assembly, as well as rule by
law, which make it difficult for China's female citizens to
address their grievances through formal channels. Courts may
refuse to take cases, especially cases involving sensitive
issues such as land, and even when cases are successful,
enforcement of the ruling remains an issue.
Last, norms impede the full protection of women's rights,
and these are often linked to discriminatory practices. One
example is the practice of women marrying out of their village.
There is a preference for sons because parents believe that it
is sons who will take care of them in old age. Gendered norms
also make these women vulnerable to deprivation of their access
to land, including shares of moneys that are earned from land
appropriation for urban or commercial development.
At another level, slogans often heard in rural areas, such
as ``Pumpkins aren't vegetables, women aren't people'' and
``Why is a woman running for village head? Did all the men die?
'' erode the state's commitment to gender equality.
In conclusion, Chinese women increasingly have more tools
to protect their rights, such as the law, but in practice
victims cannot readily access these protections due to various
hurdles. In the most motivated areas, women enjoy greater
access to justice because there is a network of key
institutions and stakeholders that publicize and enforce
legislation related to gender equality.
Thank you.
Ms. Story. Thank you, Katherine.
And now, finally, we will hear from Ambassador Lagon.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Zhao appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF MARK LAGON, FORMER AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE AND
DIRECTOR, OFFICE TO MONITOR AND COMBAT TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS
(TIP), U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ambassador Lagon. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to
take part in the Commission's work, and I really appreciate the
invitation.
``Human trafficking,'' which I have had occasion to work on
in both the nonprofit world and the State Department, is a
jargon term that is often misunderstood. It may, or often,
involve migration but it is principally about exploitation,
whether for commercial sex or labor. One sees in China ways in
which human trafficking is particularly dangerous and harmful
to women and girls, as it is all over the world.
What kinds of trafficking have we seen in China in recent
months which victimizes girls and women? A number of cases have
been documented in the annual report done by the State
Department's human trafficking office. They include instances
of women lured and forced into commercial sexual exploitation
abroad in Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, and Europe,
including the United Kingdom, and even to Africa.
There have been documented cases of women forcibly
trafficked or manipulated to go to Ghana, then when returning
to China, identified as victims, not being given the kind of
depth of protection returned victims of trafficking need, in
particular accounting for the possibility of retribution by the
traffickers.
Chinese women have been smuggled throughout the world and
forced or lured into either commercial sex or forced labor
because of the pattern of recruiters who get trafficking
victims, purposely, deeply into debt. That is used as leverage.
I met two women in Osaka, Japan who had been just such victims
of manipulation, going to Japan, and it was in fact the debt
which was the traffickers' key lever against them.
Ethnic Hmong from Vietnam have been trafficked for forced
marriages or into Internet sex operations in China. There have
been allegations that government-led labor transfer programs
have forced Uyghur girls and women to work unpaid in factories
in eastern parts of the PRC based on false promises, because in
fact trafficking involves not just sheer coercion, but
manipulation. This, of course, is a counterpart to the policy
of more and more Han Chinese coming into Xinjiang--moving
Uyghur females out.
North Korean women, in particular, have been victims of
human trafficking, brought into the sex trade and forced
marriage. Most troubling, they are typically deported if found
by authorities. A few hundred are sent back to North Korea
every month and face severe punishment in North Korea. That
effort did not winnow down, but in fact was stepped up moving
toward the Beijing Olympics.
Last, an example, not just from North Korea, has been the
vulnerability of Burmese who have been trafficked for forced
marriage, and some, when found, were deported and were
sentenced to three months in prison and were treated as
criminals or a deportable alien, as opposed to victim.
If one is to assess the record of Chinese authorities at
various levels dealing with human trafficking, there have been
a number of successes and improvements in recent years, in
particular, law enforcement efforts in some places, aimed at
sex trafficking, not so much trafficking for the purposes of
labor. Examples include Fujian police finding a number of
Vietnamese women who were trafficked into multiple provinces,
such as Yunnan and Guangxi, for the purposes of bartered or
forced marriage. Fujian police also broke up the efforts of
gang members trafficking prostituted women for the purpose of
being used by men in remote places. Finally, there have been
some examples of convictions for trafficking of dozens of
females into forced marriage in Guizhou Province.
Other examples of success or progress include training
border officials to see something as trafficking. The Ministry
of Civil Affairs started to work on training with the
International Organization for Migration, and there was
mobilization of provincial women's federation offices, giving
counsel and aid to human trafficking victims.
Finally, a public awareness campaign was run by the All-
China Women's Federation, which is, of course, a kind of quasi-
governmental institution, especially aimed at awareness of
young female migrant workers, although arguably that public
awareness campaign is limited compared to the scale of the
problem in the country.
But that said, despite these successes, there are a number
of failings which are tied to larger contributing factors which
allow women and girls to be victimized in human trafficking.
First, it is a penchant of PRC authorities to have the
prevalence of a law and order approach or what I would call a
``migration security'' approach as opposed to a human rights
approach. The laws on the books in China do not match the terms
of the Year 2000 Trafficking in Persons Protocol, the Palermo
protocol to the UN Crime Convention, and China has not ratified
that Palermo protocol.
Domestic law does not cover labor trafficking. It
insufficiently focuses on sex trafficking. Then as far as sex
trafficking goes, girls who are between 14 and 18 in the sex
industry are not considered sex trafficking victims, even
though that is the international norm, that there is no
question of volition when it comes to minors.
The State Department assesses that the PRC Government has a
tendency to conflate human trafficking and human smuggling, and
the victims of human trafficking are sometimes punished. The
All-China Women's Federation has noted that it has had to
intervene in some cases of unjust punishment. There really is
not a screening process for those who are arrested in
prostitution to see whether they are actually sex trafficking
victims.
A second important failing is the policy with regard to
desperate migrants' status, most notably in the case of North
Koreans, who are treated as economic migrants rather than
refugees. Arguably, the PRC authorities do not live up to their
commitments under the 1951 Refugee Convention and its followup
1967 protocol, and merely giving access to the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees would help. I think some of these
same policies on migrant status are also relevant to dealing
with Burmese.
A final area of problems lie in the general labor rights
situation. Laws do not provide for sufficient fines and prison
sentences for forced labor, and indeed labor infractions more
generally do not have sufficient fines and prison sentences on
the books, much less to speak of implementation. The household
registration system in China, controlling the movement of
internal migrants, is unfair, unevenly implemented, and
contributes to the vulnerability of human trafficking.
There are a couple of other contextual factors that are
worth considering: a booming sex industry, which is a little
bit a part of the context that Katherine Zhao refers to, a kind
of movement from the highly ideological Communist system to a
more Wild West capitalist system, and there is something of a
moral vacuum and a booming sex industry. Most important as a
contextual factor, though, is a demographic gender imbalance. A
shortage of marriage-available women and the situation of a
male-to-female ratio being imbalanced, fuels sex trafficking
and forced marriage.
The population policies of government authorities at all
levels, even though softened from the one-China policy,
unevenly implemented, does contribute to the problem. It is, of
course, especially striking in the form of the most horrifying,
direct curbing of reproductive choice: forced abortions and
sterilizations.
So as a final assessment, I would say, what are the
prospects for reducing human trafficking as threats to women's
and girls' rights? Given the lack of transparency of government
authorities, sharing, for instance, no information whatsoever
with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime or the Department of
State in their preparation of their respective global reports
on human trafficking, a lack of access given to international
organizations, and limited freedom to non-governmental
organizations, progress by nature in China will be slow.
Despite all of this, I think dialogue with Chinese
authorities is essential. I think it would be appropriate to
appeal to Chinese authorities to say, you are frequently
calling for economic, social, and cultural rights in a UN
context rather than political and civil liberties. Human
trafficking engages just those economic, social, and cultural
rights for women and girls. Appealing to Chinese interests as a
matter of law, and ultimately human rights in terms of economic
rights and women's rights, is a very important part of the
dialogue.
I am happy to talk more about that in the rest of our
session. Thanks.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Lagon appears in the
appendix.]
Ms. Story. Thank you, panelists, for your testimonies and
perspectives on these important issues.
We would now like to jump right into the question and
answer session. I will seize the opportunity to ask the first
question, and then we will open up questions to the audience.
This is directed at all three panelists in your varying
issue areas. Maintaining stability has been at the forefront of
the Chinese Government agenda in recent years. In what ways do
you perceive the women's issues that we've just discussed as a
stability issue? Do these issues impact the stability in China
as a whole?
Ms. de Silva de Alwis. I'd like to build on your question
and on Ambassador Lagon's comments. I think when we're talking
of security, I think one of the greatest threats to security is
the illegal sex-selective abortion issue, which really skews
the sex ratios. CASS, the Chinese Academy for Social Sciences,
predicts that in 10 years, there will be one out of five men
that will be unmarried due to a lack of girls in China.
I think that is going to cause an enormous threat to
security in every way, and that will also accelerate marriage
trafficking and violence in society, as well as violence
against women. So I think that lies at the very heart of the
security issue, the way in which sex-selective abortion, son
preference, and the devaluation of girl children all play out
and intersect in creating a threat to security.
I think apart from that, the way in which women are
excluded from employment because of over-protections in law,
because of over-inclusive laws that not just disadvantage
women, but exclude women from a variety of employment
opportunities that are available to men, is an enormous threat
to economic security, as well as the security of the family and
the community.
Again, differential retirement practices that exclude and
marginalize women from continuing to work beyond 50, in the
case of blue-collar workers, and beyond the age of 55 in the
case of cadre workers, have an enormously negative economic
impact, not just on women, but on the lives of their children,
their families, and their community. So we have to see that
again in that context of non-traditional security which affects
economic security.
And to again echo the Ambassador's words, although China
has not ratified the ICCPR, the International Convention on
Civil and Political Rights, China is a party to the ICESCR, the
International Convention on Economic, Social, and Cultural
Rights. Economic, social, and cultural rights speak to all of
these issues that we have discussed in very powerful terms. So
that is a great model through which to give voice to these
issues and to hold China accountable to the guarantees under
that convention.
Ms. Zhao. Yes. I guess to add to that, I think that another
realm in which women's issues is tied to social stability is
access to land, especially for rural women, because access to
land is the very essence of their livelihood. So being stripped
of that access and being deprived of the economic benefits that
come from losing access to the land or being able to use that
land to either farm or to contract it out to other people, is a
great source of insecurity not only to women, but also to their
families. I see this as tied to the greater social stability
climate in China.
In addition, one thing I mentioned in my speech that I feel
is underplayed is the choice between economic development and
women's rights. I don't see them as mutually exclusive. I feel
that protection of women's rights and the ability to give them
access to
employment and healthcare will also greatly benefit and
further, for example, economic development goals that the
Chinese Government may have.
Ambassador Lagon. Well, I would agree with Rangita about
the demographic trends, obviously. I think that there is a
tinder box here that is in danger of being explosive in terms
of the gender imbalance, and indeed, the problem of sex-
selective abortion and choosing not to have girls come into
this world. Also, it is not just simply the matter of there not
being more women. If women are being generally shut out from
accessing rights, they will become more and more of a powerful
force that might be destabilizing if their aspirations aren't
met.
I think the general policies on movement of workers,
whether the movement of workers within China or migrating out
of China, is a source of instability and the government
authorities are not providing sufficient and even protections
for those who move between regions of China.
I found, when I was Ambassador to combat human trafficking,
that there is no other place in the world which had as high
fees that were paid by migrant workers to shark labor
recruiters to get placed in other countries as China. That is a
formula among unregulated labor recruiters for a leverage
situation, where two years' salary in the promised job is what
the worker has to pay up front. If the job turns out to be
something different, they are trapped.
Finally, I think the kind of corruption one sees around the
world as the lifeblood of human trafficking is, of course,
pertinent in China as well. Corruption is a destabilizing
factor in many ways in China; trafficking would not flourish
but for law enforcement and migration officials who were on the
take. There have been more striking cases of corrupt officials
who have been party to children in bonded labor situations.
That is a destabilizing factor and not just a human rights
issue.
Mr. Grob. If I could just ask a follow-up to that. So the
question, obviously, is to what extent are women's rights
challenges in China a stability issue? To what extent do
Chinese authorities view it as a stability issue? We know that
when an issue is seen in the eyes of authorities as affecting
stability, it triggers a set of responses that may be somewhat
different from those that are triggered if they do not see it
that way. Is there any evidence, based on your experience or
research, that suggests whether this still is an open question,
or are women's issues today perceived by authorities as a
stability issue?
Ms. de Silva de Alwis. I'd like to continue from where
Katherine stopped as to China's embrace, and not just China's,
but most Asian governments' embrace of the Asian values
argument, which is really a convenient way for Asian
governments to explain away the erosion of human rights
violations and human rights standards. As Amartya Sen, a Nobel
laureate and foremost development economist, argues, economic
development, universal human rights norms and cultural
sensitivity are not necessarily intrinsically opposing values.
Important parts of Asian traditions include notions of
human rights, so the very concept that Asian values are to some
extent diametrically opposed to Western concepts of human
rights is a faulty argument. These are universal human rights
norms and therefore they are not in any way the priority or the
prerogative of the West.
Having said that, the idea of security, the construction of
the word ``security,'' defers from the state construction of
what is security to civil society construction of the term. I
think the state constructs security in a very traditional way
as a harmonious society, and a harmonious society as a
cornerstone of what would be non-threatening to the state. So I
think it is important for us to re-imagine security and
deconstruct those conservative constructions of what is
security and to re-imagine security in the image of all
persons, women, men, and children. So I think that is really
the challenge ahead: how do we reconstruct the term ``security?
''
Ambassador Lagon. Well, I would just say the way to look at
this, I think, is to look at who is seen as the source of
stability by the authorities. The heart of my opening statement
is the pattern of authorities treating victims of human
trafficking--women, girls, or men, for that matter--as those
who are at fault, those who are the criminals, those who are
the irregular migrants to deport and punish.
They are seen as the source of the instability rather than
the shark labor recruiter, the person who runs the brick
operation in which children are under onerous trafficking
conditions, and those who are manipulating or coercing people
into commercial sexual exploitation.
Ms. Zhao. An issue I see the government construing as a
stability issue to a limited extent is domestic violence. There
have been documented increases of women who commit a variety of
crimes, whether it is homicide, or perhaps near-fatal injuries
to
either partners, another woman, basically a third party or
their direct significant other due to long-term exposure to
domestic violence.
A comparative example might be the battered women syndrome
that we have here. But an increase in women using violence to
counter violence has been documented in a variety of provinces.
In women's prisons, there have been more individuals who have
committed crimes and been sentenced for a variety of crimes
linked to marital disputes, and if you look at the reason why,
it's mainly because they've been subjected to domestic
violence.
So I feel, as a response to this, this was an argument that
women's advocates used as one way to, for example, have the
Supreme People's Court agree to initiate a guide to provide
protection orders and other measures that can alleviate women
having to take such drastic measures.
So we see in that way that it was a stability issue and it
continues to be that there has been an innovative trial-and-
error take at the local level to see if other measures that go
through more legalized or more institutional channels can
alleviate some of these factors.
For women, some of the reasons why they resorted to these
drastic measures was because they couldn't get a divorce, or
they tried to access social services, or they tried to access
police or courts, but either the police wouldn't intervene or
the courts wouldn't take their cases, or perhaps the man
wouldn't agree to a divorce. So what you often see is they try
to exhaust other sources before they turn to taking measures
into their own hands.
It wasn't that they initially wanted to do this, but it was
more that other channels were not available or accessible. So I
think we see, through the advocacy of a variety of NGO and
civil society actors, the government is trying to once again
provide channels where women can actually be free from
violence.
Ms. Story. Thank you.
We'll open up the floor to questions from the audience. If
you do have a question, please come to this microphone at the
center.
Also, I will remind you that there is a transcript that
will be made public of this roundtable, so all questions will
be on the record. If you do have a question, please state your
name and affiliation, only if you would like it to be recorded
on the transcript.
Thank you. Kara Abramson?
Ms. Abramson. Kara Abramson, Congressional-Executive
Commission on China. Panelists noted some positive developments
in the adoption of some laws and policies, but even if fully
implemented, do these laws and policies ultimately have an
empowering effect on women, or to some extent do they
perpetuate the stereotype that women are weak, passive victims
in need of protection? One thing that is prompting this
question is, I was recently looking at the National Human
Rights Action Plan, which lumps women together with children,
so it certainly sends that message to some extent. Thank you.
Ms. de Silva de Alwis. As I said earlier, there are
overprotections in the law and those abound. The laws,
especially the labor laws, are replete with provisions that are
overprotective, stereotype women, segregate women, and exclude
women from various kinds of employment, including travel-
related employment, employment above ground, underground,
during certain periods of lactation and menstruation, and that
is a very paternalistic notion of protection of women.
ILO conventions, as well as the CEDAW, do not argue against
all protections in employment, but they call for protections in
employment that cover both men and women workers, therefore,
what is needed is a more egalitarian application of these laws
which will then not discriminate against a particular gender. I
think that is very important, to make sure that these laws are
gender-neutral and don't result in excluding one gender from
employment opportunities.
For example, the CEDAW Committee in 2006 called for a clear
and concrete definition of discrimination which is lacking in
Chinese laws. I think that is really the result of some of
these exclusions in the law and overprotective legislation. The
CEDAW calls for not just equal protection in the law, but
addresses the way in which even facially neutral laws have a
disproportionate impact on women, so both the direct and the
indirect consequences of discrimination are covered under
international guarantees.
So the idea is to understand that even when a law seems
gender neutral, facially neutral, that its impact might have a
disproportionate impact and result in excluding women from
employment opportunities. So as far as looking at these laws
from the standpoint of the international human rights norms,
the CEDAW provides the tools and the kind of benchmarks to test
how these laws should then get really translated into practice.
Ms. Zhao. Yes. One thing I noticed when I was in China from
2008 to 2009 is there is active debate about whether we should
have gender-specific or gender-neutral laws or policies. For
example, with the Supreme People's Court guide related to
broader
marriage cases that introduced a protection order, actually the
protection order is gender-neutral, both men and women can
apply.
There is at least one instance where a male has tried to
apply, but I think the problem is that it is still seen very
much as a women's issue, so in one way it stereotypes women,
but in another way it actually negatively impacts men who may
suffer from domestic violence or, for example, human
trafficking, in which we see, again, the laws and also the
national action plan that was released in 2008, are very much
targeted toward women and children. These are traditionally
seen as vulnerable groups, but at the same time it doesn't
fully capture the reality of the situation.
Ambassador Lagon. In the realm of human trafficking, I have
been an advocate for the equal importance of focusing on sex
trafficking and labor-related trafficking. The field is kind of
bifurcated. There are some people who are moved by one or the
other and I have been focused on the importance of parity.
In the realm of sex trafficking, there is a natural gender
bias that arises, but that is one of society and law
enforcement authorizations reflexively blaming women in
commercial sexual exploitation as being the ones who knew what
they were getting into, and as being dirty. For that matter, in
this country, if you look at the arrests that are involved in
prostitution, of pimps, johns, and prostituted people, two-
thirds of them are women.
So, training is something we need in this country as well
as China. I think that it is important to treat human
trafficking as something that threatens those human beings who
are not getting treated as human beings in full. But there are
some specific needs for protection and we should have dedicated
services for human trafficking, and at times that requires an
accounting for special needs of women and girls.
Ms. de Silva de Alwis. Could I just add something to what
Katherine also mentioned? Another lacuna in the Chinese legal
system is that there aren't work-family reconciliation laws.
The few provisions that relate to work-family reconciliation
are targeted only toward women. Women are still considered the
primary caregivers and are primarily responsible for family
duties. Women are thus targets of discrimination based on
family responsibility. That has a negative impact on women's
equal treatment in employment and in the public sphere.
So we need to look at the way in which these norms
intersect, the way in which equality in the home has an impact
on equality in the workplace and norms and laws that relate to
employment practices must reflect the way in which gender
equality in private and public intersect and are inextricably
interlinked.
That is why it is important that these new laws on
employment echo the new changes that are taking place around
the world and that are captured in international conventions
that call for work-family reconciliation policies that
privilege not only women, but also male caregivers who choose
the right to give care to their family members.
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Ambassador Lagon, how many TIP
[Trafficking in Persons] visas are given to Chinese who come to
the United States in terms of labor or sex trafficking? Also,
what kinds of programs were there between DOJ [Department of
Justice] and Chinese law enforcement?
Ambassador Lagon. Great questions. I don't have statistics
handy on the number of T visas given to trafficking victims to
stay in the United States, but the pattern of trafficking
victims coming from abroad is roughly this: 40 percent of the
trafficking victims that come into the United States come from
Latin America, about 40 percent come from East Asia. Patterns
have waxed and waned about the countries from which the victims
are originating in East Asia, but there used to be many more
who were from Korea. The trend in recent years has been an
increase from China and Taiwan.
But one has to realize that the number of people who have
received T visas is small. The number of victims of human
trafficking abroad that have been certified is limited and it's
a really small ``n,'' a social scientist would say, compared to
the larger reality of total victims. But if you were to
extrapolate, I think it is probably an increasing trend.
One would think that the greatest area of possible
cooperation between United States and Chinese authorities would
be on some kinds of law enforcement training. Despite the
resistance of Chinese authorities to share information with the
United States for preparing the State Department annual report
on trafficking, that is important. There have been beginnings
of that kind of cooperation, particularly the International
Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program [ICITAP]. Of
course, training often benefits from a third party, a third
party not just being the law enforcement of the United States,
but the law enforcement and the government--but civil society
actors. That has been hard to pull off, a non-starter.
Ms. Story. There's a question over here.
Anna.
Ms. Brettell. My name is Anna Brettell. I am also with the
Congressional-Executive Commission on China. My question
relates to the process by which the Anti-Domestic Violence
Network devised their expert draft Anti-Domestic Violence Law
and how it compares to the All-China Women's Federation's
[ACWF] recent draft, especially in terms of how widely did they
seek participation, from whom did they get input, and also how
was the draft received by delegates in the National People's
Congress [NPC]. Is the NPC seriously considering this draft?
What are the prospects for the passage of an anti-domestic
violence law?
Ms. de Silva de Alwis. I think Katherine and I have a
response to this. An interesting aspect of the domestic
violence draft law that was drafted by the Anti-Domestic
Violence Network [Network] is that it defines domestic violence
very broadly, far more broadly than the ACWF draft's definition
of domestic violence.
The Network's draft includes, I think as I mentioned
before, physical, sexual, verbal, economic, and psychological
violence. But what I hear is that there is some kind of
division or some kind of argument going on within the Network
as to whether this is an overbroad definition of domestic
violence, and how instances such as economic violence can be
proved in court and how that could then be a cause of action.
Our work is providing technical assistance on these definitions
and how these definitions can then be actually invoked in a
court of law and be operationalized in the case of litigation
or in the implementation of the law.
As for the process, my understanding is that the Anti-
Domestic Violence Network's draft was introduced in 2009, but
there was no response from the National People's Congress on
that, so I think they're planning to reintroduce that. The work
is ongoing. The Anti-Domestic Violence Network continues to
create forums at which this law can be introduced to the
public. I need to clarify with Katherine whether, in 2008 it
was introduced, and when they are hoping to introduce it again.
I know that the sexual harassment guideline was also
introduced.
Ms. Zhao. Yes. I think it is interesting, because both the
Anti-Domestic Violence Network, as well as the All-China
Women's
Federation, introduced their own versions of the Anti-Domestic
Violence Law. It did seem like there was not so much
communication between the two on definitions, as well as, for
example, the scope of the protection order. However, this is
only my own understanding.
There are some indications that the women's federation's
definition of protection orders might be more narrow, but in my
time there it was much harder to get a draft or any sort of
information regarding the actual draft that the women's
federation was submitting. This also points to a transparency
issue.
I think the process--I mean, a lot of it does come from
field investigations that people from the Network might do.
It's also a network of scholars, so they have their own
research. I think they try to get feedback from people that
they might talk to during their field investigations, as well
as area NGOs that are working on these issues. For example,
with the Beijing Legal Aid Center, maybe some of the cases that
they take, they might talk to the litigants there.
In terms of the NPC, I think what I would add is that it
does seem like both of these drafts were introduced in the
early 2000s and they were not made part of the legislative
agenda. It does seem like now there's room for one women's law,
so there is this idea of, should we have an anti-domestic
violence law or should we have a greater violence against women
law?
One forum that I attended, an NPC member did speak of--you
know, they do their own research as well and he was part of the
field investigations. I think for him, he needed to see the
need for a domestic violence law. So I think in terms of the
response, it did seem like at least some members may not be
completely convinced that there is a need right now for this
type of law.
Ms. de Silva de Alwis. Yes. From my research, from
reviewing the research that is shared with us by the Chinese,
the Anti-Domestic Violence Network's law was introduced to the
NPC in 2009.
Ms. Abramson. The panelists talked briefly about sex-
selective abortion. I wonder if you could speak a bit more
about this issue, including proposals in China to criminalize
it. Thank you.
Ambassador Lagon. Sex-selection abortion is a major
problem, not only in China, but in India. It's often a problem
that is swept under the rug and called other things, or kept
secret. I think it's important that it be identified
transparently as a crime.
I don't know what the prospects are for that happening in
China in short order, but the choice of having a male as
opposed to a female is one that I think is a matter of rule of
law. I mean, I see it as the ultimate issue of discrimination
if you decide that a girl should not enjoy coming into this
world.
Ms. de Silva de Alwis. And Mark reminded us that this is
not a problem just in China, but in India, too. But unlike in
China, in India the law punishes sex-selective termination of
pregnancy, which once again has not been translated fully into
action, but it still provides remedies; it provides punitive
elements that can be, to some extent a way of stopping these
cultural traditions that value the boy child over the girl
child. So that would probably be a good model for China to
learn from.
But apart from that, I think laws themselves, as we all
agree, are futile unless they have corresponding enforcement
mechanisms and provide for complementary education and
awareness raising on equality between the sexes. I think the
CEDAW--again, the Convention on Elimination of Discrimination
against Women--calls for these guarantees to be translated into
school curriculums.
There are efforts around the world, wherever there is a
cultural tradition that violates women's rights, like the
practice of dowry, like the practice of unequal feeding
practices, like the practice of child labor or child marriage,
to introduce awareness-raising programs into the courses in
primary and secondary schools.
So I think it would be important if we could have the same
kind of insight brought to bear on the education system in
China, where issues such as son preference and the devaluation
of the girl child are also addressed through the education
system. This has been done, to some extent, with some results
in countries in South Asia, where there is a decrease in child
marriage because of the way in which the education system has
been revamped to increase girls' access to and retention in
schools.
In India, the domestic violence law also provides
prohibitions against the giving of dowries. So again, a
prohibition against cultural tradition has been integrated into
a domestic violence law. So I think it's important to think
creatively when drafting China's
domestic violence law. Again, how do we integrate traditional
practices and cultural norms which violate women's rights into
lawmaking so as to frame them as a threat to human security and
to a life free from violence?
The devaluing of the girl child is also a form of domestic
violence because, as we know, women are forced to abort their
girl babies, and that has an enormous psychological impact on
the mother that leads to increased women's suicide rates. So
this is not just a stand-alone issue, but an issue that really
violates the rights of the family and threatens the security of
the family.
Mr. Grob. Ambassador Lagon?
Ambassador Lagon. I agree, China does need to move that
step toward where India is, so that there are laws on the
books. India needs to go further with implementation, but
first, laws on the books are an essential first step in China.
Another comparative example worth raising is South Korea.
The Republic of Korea has pursued, in concert with civil
society organizations, a Love Your Daughter campaign, really
trying to change mores, change thinking. It might, to some
extent, given the rapid economic growth, offer some parallels
for changing things in China. Because of the demographic
situation, the minds of both females and males are going to
have to be changed about this because of the prevalence of
males.
Mr. Grob. I wonder if I can just go back to something one
of our panelists--Katherine, I believe it was you--mentioned
about gender impact statements. Could you elaborate a little
bit, and our other panelists as well, on the notion of gender
impact statements? Is this something that is being discussed
actively either in China or in policy circles? Is it an idea
that is gaining some traction or is it one that you think
should be gaining traction? In what ways might it be a very
tangible item for dialogue and discussion?
Ms. Zhao. Sure. I think one thing--well, this also ties
back to more population planning issues--is this idea that was
brought up by researchers from the Central Party School. They
did a project related to population planning, asking, for
example, why there still exists a preference for sons. The
people in the villages they studied listed different reasons.
For example, they said, sons care for them when they're older,
or carrying on the family line, things like that.
But then they also asked villagers can daughters do this as
well, and they all said yes. So immediately there was sort of a
disconnect with realizing that actually daughters can do the
things that they say are the reason why they prefer sons--but
still there's this norm that says, well, you know, we would
rather have a son.
I think one of the things that the researchers pointed to
was policy, in the sense of the population policy that allows
for certain populations to have a second child if their first
child is a daughter. What they were pointing to is that this
gives the idea that women are not worth as much, maybe worth
half as much as men.
For this idea, they had suggested if there had been more
gender mainstreaming or a gender impact assessment--that was
more a term that I concocted--but the sense that thinking about
the impact of legislation might have prevented--or at least
made legislators more conscious of--possible negative impacts
on society and women in particular.
So, the intent of the policy is, I think, well-meaning, but
the impact on the ground might have been misleading. So I think
there has been active talk of this idea of gender mainstreaming
and lawmaking.
So before a law is actually made, it would be beneficial to
have more public participation and public debate about possible
impacts of the law. I do think that there have been scholars
who have raised this issue, and there does seem to be some
discussion in China that I've seen.
Ms. de Silva de Alwis. Gender mainstreaming is a very
powerful legacy of the Beijing Platform of Action, and I think
it should be a thread that is woven into every policy or
legislation or action plan that should come out of the 12 areas
outlined in the Beijing Platform of Action.
So building on gender mainstreaming, I think we need to
make sure that gender equality is not just an isolated issue,
it's not just a matter of a single law on anti-gender
discrimination, but an issue where anti-gender discrimination
and gender equality norms and provisions are integrated into
all laws and inform and animate all of the laws, whether they
be the land rights law, sexual harassment laws, or employment
laws, so that we ensure that the allocation of land, the
allocation of property, the allocation of employment and social
security benefits are carried out in a gender-equal manner and
a non-discriminatory manner. That is really what gender
mainstreaming is about.
Gender mainstreaming has been further qualified by the
United Nations to ensure that every law, every agency, must
ensure that a percent of the budget be allocated for gender
advancement, so in any agency, a part of their allocation must
be allotted for gender-based training, for gender-sensitive
training. So I think that is an important element that should
be absorbed into the Chinese legal system.
As for gender impact, again, it's important that we go
through the Chinese legal system and privilege gender-neutral
laws, but also ensure the equal impact of these laws on women.
I think that is why it is so important to make sure that these
laws are justiciable in a court of law.
As I pointed out earlier, implementation of laws is weak.
As for international conventions--never are international
conventions invoked in a court of law in China, but hardly are
the actual provisions on anti-discrimination or on gender
equality used as a cause of action in a court of law. So, that
is problematic.
You mentioned Korea. One of the ways in which Korea
reversed its son preference was by mounting an aggressive fight
against that, and bringing litigation on gender equality,
making sure these laws are invoked in courts of law and that
judges are also made aware of and cognizant of gender equality.
Audience Participant. Just bringing together two of the
themes that I think you all brought up: one is legal reform,
the other is cultural reform. Many have said that some Chinese
traditional values discriminate against women in the workplace
or in the community.
What I can imagine, is I can imagine a scenario where the
male/female ratio increases. You have a surplus of males. That
gives males more power in the workplace or in the community.
Therefore, if you try to institute, at the same time, legal
reform giving women more rights, you'll be coming up against
larger opposition and you will have, therefore, strife in the
community that is an unwanted sort of backlash of that.
I was wondering if you could comment on that, and if China
has recognized this issue.
Ambassador Lagon. That's a very good question about the
impact of the demographic trends on making changes in the law.
I don't know whether this has been recognized by Chinese
authorities--an awareness of the instability that comes from
the male/female ratio is coming, but I'm not sure that this
element of the
instability has been appreciated.
I would just say, as a prescriptive matter, that those who
are experts on China, those who have occasion to be in dialogue
with civil society and government authorities in China should
not propose a ``go slow'' approach on changing the norms that
are written into law. Well, disappointing as it is throughout
the world and in China to see laws on the books not
implemented, it is important to get those laws and norms
written down. I would not think an implication of your
observation is that we should go slow on the norms being
codified.
Ms. de Silva de Alwis. I would agree with his statement.
Mr. Grob. Any other questions?
Ms. Oldham-Moore. Could you talk about the impact on ethnic
minority women in China, Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hui? How is their
experience different, both from a legal framework and also from
an economic standpoint?
Ambassador Lagon. Well, there is a pattern of all sorts of
people migrating through the provinces of China looking for
better economic opportunities. I think there is a more acute
situation where there are robbed economic opportunities, when
there is a concerted decades-long policy of the government to
neutralize the distinct culture of certain areas--of Tibetans,
and of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Importantly, economic opportunity is reduced for ethnic
women and girls in those situations. They are more desperate to
move, to look for other opportunities, which is unfortunate
because it means sort of ceding their territory, and the
protections that exist in general arguably are weaker for those
ethnic minorities.
Ms. de Silva de Alwis. I'd like to respond by commenting on
the way in which evolving law reform has captured the need to
look at multiple forms of discrimination. As I said earlier,
the Law of Employment Promotion of 2008 broke new ground by
outlawing discrimination on the grounds of nationality, race,
gender, religious belief, age, and physical disability. For the
first time an articulation of the law dismantles discrimination
based on multiple grounds, including race and nationality.
But what is most exciting is this new law that is being
drafted by the experts, which I said is known as the Experts
Draft on Anti-Discrimination outlaws discrimination based on
multiple grounds, including nationality, gender, religion,
beliefs, disability, physical characteristics, age, health
conditions, and sexual orientation, and other factors. So I
think this is the promise of the law, and I hope this promise
is fulfilled.
Mr. Grob. Any other questions from the audience? Back
there.
Ms. Purdy. Lindsey Purdy from the Laogai Research
Foundation. Secretary Clinton will be delivering remarks at the
United Nations on Friday morning concerning the 15th
anniversary of the Beijing Conference. I was just wondering, to
bring this back to international policy, if each of you would
address whether or not her remarks should be hopeful with
regard to China.
Ms. de Silva de Alwis. As I said, civil society advocacy is
animated by the human rights traditions that were spawned by
the Beijing Conference. That had an enormous impact on their
advocacy. In fact, they look at the second wave of feminism in
China as that which began in 2005, so that was an important
watershed moment in the history of women's rights, not just in
China, but around the world and it really resonated most with
women's rights advocates in China.
This is the tool that they use to launch their advocacy.
This is what they use to justify and legitimize their advocacy.
So it is one of the most powerful frameworks in which to locate
their human rights advocacy and justify the demands that they
make. So, the Beijing Conference was really a watershed moment
and its legacy has been enormous.
So, yes, as far as the impact of international human rights
norms, the impact of international conferences on China as a
mobilizing, galvanizing, organizing tool is enormous and I
would not understate that. So I do hope that the Secretary's
remarks that she made 15 years ago, that women's rights are
human rights, are heard once again very loudly and clearly
across the world.
Mr. Grob. Ambassador Lagon, then Katherine Zhao.
Ambassador Lagon. Well, you can count on Secretary Clinton
emphasizing women's rights. It's the single issue on human
rights that she has been most vocal about in her tenure. I
think it's quite important for the administration of the United
States to take advantage of multilateral instruments and
identify standards that are not just ones that are articulated
in the United States, and are important and universal as we
sense they are, but citing those international instruments.
But I do think it's the responsibility of the United States
to hold a high standard, and I think we would be doing a
disservice to the future of women in China to overstate how far
toward the aspirational aims laid out in Beijing Conference
documents from 15 years ago which China has gotten. There is a
long way that has been moved and achieved in the last 15 years,
but it would be very good for the United States to cite this
international set of norms and say there is a long way to go.
Mr. Grob. Katherine?
Ms. Zhao. May I just add one remark? I think with regard to
China, there is the possibility to be hopeful. There are a lot
of challenges, some of which I documented in my speech. But I
feel if we just look at the 1995 Beijing platform, for example,
in which civil society was relegated to an off-site location
from Beijing, and then we look at periodic reports to CEDAW in
which a shadow report by civil society in China was not even
allowed, to now where the government has allowed more input by
Chinese civil society in planning Beijing + 15.
So I feel if we just look at it in terms of a temporal
comparison, there has been progress along the lines of more
civil society input that we need to recognize. That's
definitely there, but at the same time I feel like some
challenges which I mentioned, and some that I haven't
mentioned, still remain.
Mr. Grob. Additional questions from the audience? Abbey,
did you want to ask a question?
Ms. Story. I do have another question about civil society
in particular. Based on your research and anecdotal experience,
is the Chinese Government imposing any restrictions on women's
rights-focused organizations specifically, or are restrictions
placed on civil society organizations in general, having an
impact--and what kind of impact--on women's rights-focused
organizations?
Ambassador Lagon. My own observation is that there is a
consistency. I wouldn't say there's any special harassment of
women-related NGOs. I think just in general, if it isn't a
GONGO, a
government-organized non-governmental organization, there isn't
going to be much room for it.
I think on this, this is the side of affairs where the
Chinese Government is classically governing too much, not
leaving enough room for civil society. But it is important,
including for people like me who in the past sort of had a bias
toward thinking the only way to understand the problem of
governance in China is to see too much authority, to see that
in fact the human trafficking element of women's and girls'
rights is an example of, in another respect, government
governing too little.
Ms. de Silva de Alwis. China is one of the few countries
that does not submit a real, authentic shadow report to the
CEDAW Committee. Whatever shadow reports that are forwarded to
the CEDAW Committee are done outside of China and not within
China, and the only so-called shadow report is almost always
written by the All-China Women's Federation, which is really a
part of the government.
So that is really very sad, given the expertise of the
women's movement in China and the sophistication of the women's
groups in China, that they are not even permitted to write a
shadow report, to voice their concerns, to have their voices
heard; they have been silenced. So that is an unfortunate
aspect of the government's hold on civil society because if
that dormant role of the civil society was unleashed, I think
what we would see is actually a better framing of the state in
the light of international norms.
That is why it is so important that, like in other
countries, the women's NGOs not only hold the state accountable
to women's rights violations, but are partners with the state
to implement these norms and work in partnership with the state
to monitor the implementation of women's human rights. So I
think that's the missing link, that civil society is not seen
to be partners with the government in implementing and
monitoring women's human rights.
Mr. Grob. Thank you.
Katherine?
Ms. Zhao. I agree with Mark. I see restrictions on civil
society organizations across the board, not particularly
greater restrictions on organizations working on women's
rights. In many ways, there are similar patterns of challenges
in terms of gaining legal status or being able to work with
government organizations.
There are definitely variations in terms of restrictions on
organizations in different sectors, and government agencies in
certain parts of the country might be more willing to work with
NGOs, but it depends. Of course, across the board, there is
still not enough collaboration between state and society.
One area of restriction that I do see for women's rights is
work with sex workers. Due to the illegal nature of
prostitution, NGOs that work on this issue are doubly
stigmatized in the sense that it's very hard for them to gain
legal status because of the population they're serving. It
makes it extremely hard for them to really operate as any sort
of vibrant civil society.
Mr. Grob. Finally, just to bring this to a close--and I
thank you all for participating today--it has been a great
privilege and honor for us. If you had 30 seconds to recommend
to President Obama or to Secretary Clinton one thing that they
could do, including one thing that they might say to President
Hu or Premier Wen, or one thing they could do as a matter of
U.S. Government policy, to promote and advance the cause of
women's rights in China, what would it be?
Ms. de Silva de Alwis. I would say that women's human
rights are critical to the advancement of the rule of law and
good governance in China. There is nothing as important in the
political economy of development in China as women's
empowerment.
Mr. Grob. Katherine?
Ms. Zhao. Something I mentioned earlier is the sense that
women can participate and positively promote economic
development. Women having more access to education--actually
higher education, women, depending on the discipline, have
similar, if not higher, attendance rates. So in terms of human
capital, they have a lot to contribute. I feel the government
can benefit from women's participation and I hope that they see
that economic development and women's rights are not mutually
exclusive.
Ambassador Lagon. Well, it's important for the United
States to emphasize that human rights are universal and that
women and girls need to be recognized in terms of their basic
dignity in China, as everywhere else. And appealing to China's
authorities based on stability as well is important.
To pick up on what you were saying, a movement of thinking
over time by the Chinese authorities that civil society actors
are in fact a source of cushioning shock absorbers and
partners--not threats to the grip on power of Chinese
Government--is an important realization that American
authorities can play a role in delivering the message about.
Mr. Grob. On that note, I would like to thank you all for
coming. I'd like to thank our panelists today for your input
and comments. You've given us much to ponder and contributed
much to the debate. So, thank you very much.
With that, this roundtable is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:30 p.m., the roundtable was concluded.]
A P P E N D I X
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Prepared Statements
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Prepared Statement of Rangita de Silva de Alwis
march 8, 2010
The Beijing Women's Conference in 1995 and its progeny the Beijing
Platform of Action marked a watershed event in the history of local and
global women's movements. The clarion call to take Beijing back home
resonated both locally and globally and reverberated in China among
women's rights scholars and practitioners.
Fifteen years after this historic event and 30 years after the
landmark Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women (CEDAW) that China has ratified provides an important
turning point to reflect on how the CEDAW has catalyzed gender-based
lawmaking and mobilized women's groups in China to hold stakeholders
accountable to the letter and spirit of the guarantees enshrined in the
CEDAW. In the final analysis, as a universally recognized norm setting
instrument, the CEDAW has become a powerful benchmark for women's
rights groups in China to monitor the implementation of existing
legislation. Most importantly, as an universal bill of rights for
women, the CEDAW legitimizes and augments the voices of Chinese women's
rights groups in their call for reform in law and practice in China.
These calls in China echo the reforms taking place in analogous areas
in other countries.
However, international norms are sometimes a double edged sword.
For despite the fact that they are powerful tools to advocate for and
monitor women's rights, China too has cloaked weak lawmaking in the
garb of international norms. In spite of the rhetoric of the Chinese
State which emphasized at the CEDAW Committee hearings in 2006 that the
new reforms to the Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and
Interests (LPWRI) were governed by the CEDAW committees Concluding
Observations, the CEDAW Committees Concluding Observations made after
the 5th and 6th State report in 2006 were very similar to and
reinforced prior Concluding Observations made after the 3rd and 4th
State report in 1999. This leads one to question the actual impact of
these Concluding Observations on the State. What in fact had been
adopted were the form and not the substance of international human
rights norms.
The Chinese delegation acknowledged to the CEDAW Committee that
there lies ahead ``a fairly long historical process to progress from de
jure equality to de facto equality.''
Juxtaposed with the State's change resistant articulation of
women's rights, China's women's rights scholars and practitioners
innovative use of international women's rights norms has powerful
transformative potential. The 2005 reforms to the LPWRI of 1995 was a
milestone in women's rights advocacy in China and spawned a panoply of
gender based law reform initiatives both locally and nationally.
I will share with you a thumbnail sketch of the highlights of the
new and emerging developments in gender and the law in China and the
exciting way in which these reformist initiatives have sparked local to
global engagements. Firstly, the new laws manifest a marked movement
away from the paternalistic notions on the protection of women toward
embracing a more human rights based concept of the empowerment of
women. Secondly, an indirect consequence of the ambiguous and the
aspirational nature of the national laws such as the LPWRI has led
women's groups to redirect their efforts to mobilize strong guidelines
at the provincial level thus creating greater opportunities for the
vindication of women's rights at the local level. For example, 19 of
the 31 provinces and, autonomous regions have formulated implementing
regulations for operationalizing the women's law and 24 provinces have
some sort of services for victims of domestic violence.
domestic violence
Although domestic violence has now been clearly prohibited by the
revisions to the LPWRI, as well as addressed by provisions of the
revised Marriage Law, China still lacks national legislation on
domestic violence. ``The horse I buy and the wife I own are mine to
beat'' is a popular folk saying and the concept of woman as man's
property still exists in many parts of China.
The existing provisions are ambiguous in nature and are silent on a
definition of domestic violence or the scope of the law as required by
international human rights guarantees. However, women's groups have
been creative in their search for redress and have seized for
themselves the mantle of change. Some of the most vibrant new
developments are in the area of domestic violence law and policy making
and the women's rights groups have helped shape a trail of reform.
The Supreme People's Court Trial Guide to Domestic Violence Related
Cases, March of 2008, was published by the Applied Legal Institute of
the Supreme People's Court and breaks new ground by providing
protection orders in pilot courts under limited circumstances. Leading
women's rights advocates hail this as a ``small step in law theory but
a big step in judicial practice.'' The challenge now is to expand the
protective orders beyond the 9 pilots and push the boundaries of its
scope.
Another new development, the Several Opinions on Prevention and
Prohibition from Domestic Violence in August 2008 provides an inter
department collaboration for addressing and handling domestic violence
cases.
Informed and animated by the Declaration on the Elimination of
Violence against Women, (DEVAW), the CEDAW and new developments in
domestic violence lawmaking around the world, the anti-domestic
violence network has developed a strong experts draft on domestic
violence. This experts draft is a blue print for national law reform
and embraces many of the international law definitions on domestic
violence including physical, sexual, verbal and psychological violence;
broadens the scope of the law and provides much needed remedies for
victims. Set up in 2000, the domestic violence network is one of the
strongest networks of civil society advocates in China spanning 28
provinces and autonomous regions and is an important narrative of civil
society engagement in China.
Incubating developments include the new Supreme Court
Interpretation on Handling Marriage Cases Involving Domestic Violence
and an ACWF Guideline on the Prevention of Domestic Violence. These
efforts to draft provincial level laws and national level guidelines
complement the continuing call for a national domestic violence law and
echo international guarantees to prevent and address domestic violence.
gender discrimination in employment
Although the employment of women in public and private enterprises
have increased, women are still concentrated in the lower strata of the
informal sector.
Feminization of part time work, gender bias in advertisements and
recruitment that call for particular height, weight and looks among
applicants, sex segregation in employment, the commodification and
objectification of women, family based discrimination, and cross-
cutting and multiple forms of discrimination disadvantage and
subordinate women in China. Differential retirement practices that
force both blue collar and professional women to retire ten years ahead
of their male counterparts are some of the biggest threats to economic
development in China.
The Law of Employment Promotion 2008 breaks new ground by outlawing
discrimination on the grounds of nationality, race, gender, religious
belief, age and physical disability. The Labor Contract Law which came
into force in 2008 too reflects a paradigm change in labor relations as
it articulates that a contract must be based on principles of
lawfulness, fairness, equality, voluntariness, negotiated consensus and
good faith. Despite these good faith efforts, these laws have had a
disproportionate impact on women workers. The disparate impact of these
laws result in more women being forced into part-time employment. The
under implementation of these laws in a time of global economic strain
is a thread that runs through most laws.
Provincial level laws provide for more effective articulations of
gender equality. For example, the Ways for the Implementation in
Guangdong Province establishes that no woman worker can suffer the
termination of labor or decrease in wages or responsibility due to
marriage, pregnancy, maternity leave, lactation or other reasons.
In the absence of a national anti- discrimination law, anti-
discrimination scholars and practitioners in China have developed a
model anti- discrimination law based on ILO guidelines and other
international norms. This draft law known as ``The Expert's Draft on
Anti-Discrimination, outlaws discrimination based on multiple grounds
of discrimination including: ``nationality, genders, status, religion,
beliefs, disability, physical characteristics, age, health conditions,
sexual orientation and other factors which harm equal opportunities and
treatment in employment and occupation of laborers.'' These unique
experts draft laws in different areas of law in China including
domestic violence, anti- discrimination and sexual harassment are often
blue prints for reform and catalysts for action.
sexual harassment
A similar experts draft on sexual harassment and a sexual
harassment guideline for companies are two exciting new developments
initiated by Chinese scholar practitioners and are informed by ILO
Conventions as well as the CEDAW.
These dynamic initiatives by civil society scholars fill the lacuna
left by inoperable and normative laws. For example, although the
revised LPWRI for the first time outlaws sexual harassment, this
provision remains aspirational. The law does not provide a definition
of sexual harassment, nor does it provide the elements of the offense.
So far of the 19 national cases that have gone to courts no case has
articulated sexual harassment as a cause of action but based a claim
for damage on other provisions in the law.
rural women's property rights
With 70 percent of women in rural areas, the face of poverty in
China is often that of a woman. Due to patriarchal norms, male
dominated village committees and autonomous village committee
regulations, women who are married out, divorced, widowed or single are
deprived of access to land tenure or ``responsibility land.''
Here too, women's rights leaders have seized the opportunity for
reform to call for a form of judicial review of village committee
rulings. Thus Article 63 of the Property Law of 2007 allows an
aggrieved party to appeal to the People's Court when her rights have
been threatened by decisions made by a collective economic organization
or villagers committee. In another instance of creative advocacy, women
in Nanjing and Guandong have mobilized efforts locally to engage in
more egalitarian decision making at the village level. As a result, the
revised village rules include a greater role for women in participation
in community affairs.
The Land Management Law that is currently being drafted provides a
new opportunity for women to have their voices heard in the law making
process.
In conclusion, although international human rights norms are yet to
be read directly into lawmaking or judicial decision making in China,
women's rights advocates use these norms as a model to inform their
advocacy and to bolster their arguments before a public or political
forum. To this extent, human rights norms have been important building
blocks of the emerging and ongoing reform processes on behalf of women
in China. China's women's groups have galvanized around the universally
shared rather than unilaterally held goals of the CEDAW. It has sparked
a process of transnational engagements and a more multilateral and
comparative approach to law and practice. These internationalization
processes have provided useful interpretive tools and litmus tests to
gauge the gap between laws and practice.
In the final analysis the rights rhetoric remains largely symbolic
and is not always fully translated into action. However, women's rights
groups in China have emerged and reinvented themselves as the true
agents of change who have ignited debates that would otherwise be
dormant. Though China's progress in women's rights law making has not
delivered on all its promises, in fact, as seen in the Chinese context,
the process for change does not end but begins with the drafting of a
law. Seizing the political moment, women's groups continue to forge
platforms to shape public opinion and policy. The journey continues and
Chinese women's group are constantly challenging themselves to find new
and alternative ways of addressing unresolved issues and re-imagining
strategies.
______
Prepared Statement of Katherine Zhao
march 8, 2010
introduction
I wish to first thank the Commission for the opportunity to discuss
China's protection of women's rights, especially on International
Women's Day. Amidst China's transition from a socialist to a more
market-oriented country, a host of social problems has emerged that
disproportionately affect women. How has the Chinese state responded?
Building on Rangita's insightful analysis, I will highlight three areas
of progress and four remaining challenges by drawing on developments
from domestic violence, land rights, and employment discrimination.
areas of progress
Improved laws and policies
Within the past 30 years, the central government has released
national laws and policies that prohibit domestic violence, employment
discrimination, and the violation of women's land rights, and gender
equality is one of the seven basic state policies. Yet it is often
local areas such as Hunan province that continually push legislative
boundaries. On the heels of the Beijing Conference on Women, it issued
the first local regulations on domestic violence in 1996. In April
2009, the Hunan High People's Court issued the Guiding Opinions
Regarding Strengthening Judicial Protections for Women Who Suffer from
Domestic Violence (Trial). Intensely debated and only 21 articles long,
this is China's first guiding opinion by a provincial-level court
specifically on domestic violence cases.
Increased services, awareness, and access to justice
There have also been increasingly more social services available to
women, whether in the form of national and local hotlines for domestic
violence or human trafficking, shelters, or activity centers that
provide vocational training. In addition to greater public awareness as
a result of media campaigns, more women are using the courts and other
dispute resolution channels to seek redress for their grievances. This
has resulted in a small but growing group of successful cases,
including the first criminal case involving sexual harassment. An
increase in legislation and social services reflects the prevalence of
social problems and the state's desire to address these problems
through institutionalized or semi-formal channels.
Advocacy efforts
One of the exciting developments in women's rights revolves around
innovative advocacy efforts by NGOs, scholars, women federation
officials, and allies within the state. Advocates began to notice an
increase in the use of violence by women against their batterers;\1\
partly as a way to provide alternatives and to allow for normal court
proceedings, the Supreme People's Court introduced protection orders on
a trial basis last year in select courts involving divorce cases. The
preliminary impact of protection orders include (1) enforcement that
has exceeded expectations and encouraging women who previously felt
afraid to come forward (2) greater interagency cooperation,
specifically between courts and the police (3) the mobilization of
advocates in their push for legislation against domestic violence.
Specifically, in January 2009 a woman seeking divorce due to domestic
violence was brutally assaulted by her husband. Her brother had
previously asked the municipal court to issue a protection order on her
behalf. The court refused, galvanizing advocates to draft a judicial
interpretation experts' proposal that would make protection orders
available nationwide. Many advocates see the passage of a judicial
interpretation as a ``seat warmer'' for the release of the long-awaited
Anti-Domestic Violence Law in China. Lastly, protection orders have
also (4) generated public debate, most noticeably online.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ According to data from Shaanxi province women's prisons, there
was a 32.47 percent increase in 2005 from the same period in 2004 of
female offenders who commit crimes involving the use of violence to
counter violence and enter prison. There was a 21.43 percent increase
in 2006 from 2005.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the case of Hunan province, which has issued the most protection
orders, active engagement by women federation officials, judges, police
officers, as well as the support of the political-legal committee in
the capital Changsha, has played a pivotal role in number and kinds of
protection orders that have been issued. For example, they have issued
protection orders that go beyond prohibiting violence to specifying
that the perpetrator must stay 200 meters away from the victim's
residence, place of work, or her family's place of residence.
remaining challenges
Lagging implementation and the need for more public awareness
Despite written legislation, implementation lags. Notwithstanding
vague legislation, officials may ignore, circumvent, or not know about
certain legislation, especially when work related to gender equality is
not linked to an official's performance assessment and promotion
prospects. Similarly, enterprises and other organizations, when faced
with who bears the cost of pregnancy and maternal leave, discriminate
women at every stage of her employment from recruitment, compensation
and benefits, promotion to retirement. In other words, the Chinese
state has created inadequate structural incentives and the distribution
of resources to enforce policy related to gender equality. Though
organizing bodies such as the All-China Women's Federation exist, they
are understaffed and have limited power; some provincial-level women's
federation offices may only have four or fewer personnel. In addition,
some officials see economic development and the preservation of the
family as incompatible with the promotion of women's rights, so that
the former takes precedence.
Lastly, the lack of knowledge about legislation and services that
help women, even by women federation officials, reinforce the need to
increase awareness. For example, government-run shelters are sometimes
intentionally not publicized for fear that it will create demand that
surpasses capacity.
Unintentional effect of laws and policies
Another impediment to the realization of women's rights involves
Chinese legislation that unintentionally affects women negatively.
Population planning policies, for example, that allow the parents of a
daughter to have another child unwittingly further the belief that
daughters are not as good as sons. Additionally, restrictions in the
2002 Rural Land Contracting Law and the 2007 Property Law against
readjustments make it extremely difficult if not illegal to adjust the
land to accommodate women's migration outside of the village. Another
subset of legislation includes protective laws that dictate women's
early retirement age or participation in certain types of work. In this
regard, conducting a gender impact assessment might be helpful in
anticipating possible harmful effects of legislation on millions of
Chinese citizens.
Constraints on advocacy, access to justice, and the realization of the
rule of law
Wider institutional controls on freedom of speech and assembly as
well as rule by law not only contravene China's international
commitments and its own laws, but make it difficult for China's female
citizens to address their grievances through formal channels. For
example, courts sometimes refuse to take cases involving land, and even
when cases are successful, enforcement of the ruling remains an issue.
Lingering patriarchal norms
Norms impede the full protection of women's rights, and are often
tied to discriminatory practices. The practice of women marrying out of
the village, for example, fuels the preference for sons because parents
believe that it is sons who will take care of them in old age. It also
makes these women vulnerable to the deprivation of their access to
land, including shares of monies that are earned from land
appropriation for urban or commercial development. At another level,
slogans often heard in rural areas such as ``pumpkins aren't
vegetables, women aren't people,'' and ``why is a woman running [for
village head], did all the men die?'' erode the state's commitment to
gender equality, especially when condoned by those in power.
In conclusion, Chinese women increasingly have more tools to
protect their rights, such as the law, yet in practice, victims cannot
readily access these protections due to various hurdles. In the most
motivated areas, women enjoy greater access to justice because there is
a network of key institutions and stakeholders that publicize and
enforce legislation related to gender equality.
I look forward to questions you may have and further discussion.
Thank you.
Submission for the Record
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