Thirty years after it was first promulgated, the Law on the Protection of Women’s Rights and Interests has just been revised. On Oct. 30, the 37th session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress passed the revisions, which will take effect the first of the year.
The revision enriched the content of the law from 61 articles in nine chapters to 86 articles in 10 chapters. This is another comprehensive revision following 2005’s substantial revision and the fractional adjustments of 2018. The revised law further stipulates that the state shall take appropriate measures to promote equality between men and women, eliminate all forms of discrimination against women and prohibit the exclusion and restriction of women’s enjoyment and exercise of rights and interests under the law. It indicates that the protection of women’s rights and interests will be strengthened. To this end, explicit and implicit systems should be adopted simultaneously and all endeavors should be pushed forward through both system construction and relevant incidents.
Since the first edition of the law came into effect, China has made great progress in the protection of women’s rights. Hundreds of millions of Chinese women have displayed their talent in any number of economic and social fields and gained an unprecedented social status over thousands of years. However, we must admit that the situation remains grim. The trafficking in women, workplace sexual harassment and gender discrimination in employment frequently occurred, sparking heated public debate. Early this year, the chained woman in Xuzhou, East China’s Jiangsu province, caused an outcry in China. The protection of women’s rights involves the vital rights of every woman and every family, as well as human dignity. If women’s rights are not well protected, any woman, including you and your female family members, is likely to be violated like the chained woman in Xuzhou. The public has thus been waiting expectantly to see what steps the state will take next to protect women’s rights. By soliciting online public opinion, the first and second revision drafts of the law received over 400,000 and over 300,000 comments respectively, making it one of the draft laws with the largest number of comments in recent years. Behind these opinions is the public’s urgent hope for more intense efforts to protect women’s rights. What has been done until now has not been too much, but rather, far from enough.
The revision of the law is not only a system construction but also concept promotion. Its significance is clear. China still has a long way in protecting women’s rights. Laws, on the one hand, as the embodiment of the state’s will and explicit systems, can be designed with apparent orientations. On the other hand, it should not be ignored that customs, concepts and other implicit systems may restrict the protection of women’s rights. Explicit systems can lead and shape implicit systems, but the latter can also have counter effects on the former. The effective implementation of explicit systems depends on the development of implicit systems. That is, both explicit and implicit systems should be considered.
Although gender equality has been written into the law clearly as a basic national policy, the elimination of all forms of mutilations and discrimination against women is often reduced to an empty slogan due to a lack of support from specific systems. Although the trafficking of women has long been prohibited by law, men in some places in China, for a long period of time, still thought wives could be bought with money. Some public security officers who have tried to rescue trafficked women in the past have been besieged by local villagers. It is a similar story for sexual harassment. It can do great harm to women both physically and mentally, but the illegal behavior of sexual harassers is often not corrected. It is largely because many people think that sexual harassment is something trivial, and both relevant institutions and individuals prefer to cover it up rather than expose it in order to minimize the social consequences. Various facts indicate that a set of implicit systems exist widely and tenaciously and that they are not only followed but may even render the national legal system unfeasible. This is an intractable problem hindering the protection of women’s rights.
At present, the imperative is to develop a series of new refined systems and put them into effect as soon as possible. The upgraded law defines the specific situation of gender discrimination in employment and incorporates it into labor security supervision. In addition to provisions on the prohibition of abducting and kidnapping women, the new law stipulates the responsibilities of the government and relevant authorities for reporting, rescuing, settling and caring for abducted and kidnapped women. It also improves the system for preventing and dealing with sexual harassment and sexual abuse and makes more targeted provisions for situations that occur in schools and work places. Moreover, the new law further clarifies women’s rights in the identification of membership to rural collective economic organizations, registration of immovable property and compensation for expropriation or requisition. These detailed systems demonstrate the response to social calls and China’s social progress. The early implementation of these provisions constitutes a guarantee for the law.
While protecting women’s rights, we should equally value system evolution and event promotion. The two aspects supplement each other and effect the integration of the national legal system and the implicit system. The “Sun Zhigang incident” in 2003 prompted the abolishment of China’s custody and repatriation system. In recent years, cases related to the abduction and trafficking of women and sexual harassment have become the focus of public opinion. This shows that protecting women’s rights is a long-term, arduous task and that power of social conscience and women’s consciousness of rights are awakening. It is hard to imagine whether the public would perceive the relevance of women’s rights and interests protection to them if these vicious incidents were not exposed by the media that overcame formidable obstacles. Every major event has promoted the reflection across the society. In a sense, the new law is the fruit of reflection. The important role of the free flow of information in promoting social progress has been highlighted.
Attaching equal importance to punishment and taking corrective measures is still the best choice at present. Punishment or accountability is weak for acts that infringe upon women’s rights, or for the dereliction of duty to protect women’s rights. Only with severe punishment under the law can we appease victims, make the delinquent understand their responsibilities and serve a warning to others. The new regions of the law specifies that the basic national policy of gender equality is incorporated into the national education system, and publicity and education will be conducted to enhance the awareness of equality across society and foster the social custom of respecting and caring for women. This is very helpful for improving the implicit system. In terms of publicity and education, seriously correcting every violation of women’s rights is the most effective way.
The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China reaffirmed that we should remain committed to the fundamental national policy of gender equality and protect the lawful rights of women and children. Protecting citizens’ rights, especially women’s rights, is integral to China’s modernization. Protecting women’s rights is the aspiration voiced by hundreds of millions of Chinese women and also shows the degree of social civilization. We see this amended law as a milestone in the protection of women’s rights in China.
Get our weekly free Must-Read newsletter.
