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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 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.cecc.gov 

(II) 

CO N T E N T S 

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 

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WOMEN IN A CHANGING CHINA 

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 

2 

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 genderbased 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. 

3 

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 

4 

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 ViolenceRelated 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 disVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:28 Jul 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\55541.TXT DEIDRE
5 

crimination 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.] 

6 

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 antidomestic 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. 

7 

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. 

8 

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-ATLARGE 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, 

9 

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 AllChina 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 

10 

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 

11 

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 

12 

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 

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rity 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 nonthreatening to the state. So I think it is important for us to reimagine 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 

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tors, 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 examVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:28 Jul 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\55541.TXT DEIDRE
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ple, 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 workfamily 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 

16 

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 

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tually 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 AntiDomestic 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. 

18 

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 

19 

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 

20 

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 genderbased 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 

21 

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 AntiDiscrimination 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 

22 

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 rightsfocused 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 womenrelated NGOs. I think just in general, if it isn’t a GONGO, a 

23 

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 

24 

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.] 

(25) 

A P P E N D I X 

26 

PREPARED STATEMENTS

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 

27 

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. 

28 

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. 

29 

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. 

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. 

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 

30 

Federation exist, they are understaffed and have limited power; some provinciallevel 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. 

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