However, HRIC believes that owing to restrictions on information, failure to prosecute buyers of women, corruption and indifference among local officials and lack of services to victims the Chinese government has thus far failed in its responsibility to eliminate this modern slave trade. HRIC believes that discrimination against girls is tacitly accepted as part of the population control policy, and that in pursuit of demographic targets, the Chinese government has failed to prevent abuses of the fundamental rights of female children. Women continue to be forced, by physical coercion, psychological pressure tactics and economic penalties, to have abortions, sterilizations or IUD insertions. HRIC believes the Chinese government has failed to act to redress the disproportionate burden of the population control policies falling on women or to halt the use of violence in the implementation of these policies. Millions of migrant and rural women workers suffer terrible working conditions, which violate Chinese laws, in silence.
Women increasingly work in the less paid, less valued sectors of the economy.
HRIC believes that because of its overwhelming focus on rapid economic growth the Chinese government has failed to address open discrimination and abuse of women's labor rights. Hundreds of millions of women and girls suffer from domestic violence, a problem which officials have denied existed until recently. The lack of services or supports for victims has meant that women trying to escape such abuse often have nowhere to turn. HRIC believes that the Chinese government must do more to recognize this form of human rights abuse and must lift controls on the activities of independent groups which can advocate for abused women and girls. Women who have spoken out against human rights abuses, advocated for political change or religious freedom have, like men, been subject to detention, imprisonment and torture for their beliefs.