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    Projects/Campaigns

      NWCCW is the abbreviation of the National Working Committee on Children and Women under the State Council. It was founded on February 22, 1990. It is the government's organization that is responsible for women and children's work. In particular, it is responsible for coordinating and guiding relevant government departments as they implement laws, regulations and policy-related measures regarding women and children.

      Health of ChildrenHealth of Children

      (1) Reduce steadily the incidence of frequently-occurring birth defects that cause serious disabilities; reduce disabilities caused by birth defects.

      (2) Reduce infant mortality rate to less than 10 per thousand and that of children aged under 5 to 13 per thousand. Reduce the mortality rate of infants and children under 5 among the floating population. 

      (3) Reduce deaths and disabilities of children caused by injury. Reduce by the death rate of injured children below the age of 18.

      (4) Keep common childhood diseases and serious infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS, syphilis, tuberculosis, and hepatitis B, under control.

      (5) Increase the rate of immunization and vaccination, as part of the national immunization plan, to above 95 percent at the township level.

      (6) Reduce the incidence of neonatal tetanus among newborn babies to less than 1 per thousand at the county level.

      (7) Keep the incidence of low birth-weight below 4 percent. 

      (8) Raise the breast-feeding rate for babies under six months to above 50 percent.

      (9) Keep the incidence of anemia among children under 5 below 12 percent and reduce by 1/3 of the 2010 level the incidence of anemia among primary and middle school students.

      (10) Keep growth retardation among children under 5 below 7 percent, and reduce the incidence of low weight among the same age group to below 5 percent.

      (11) Increase the rate of primary and middle school students that meet the National Standard on Students' Physical Health. Control the incidence of weak sight, tooth cavities, overweight/obesity and malnutrition.

      (12) Reduce children’s psychological or behavioral problems and mental illness.

      (13) Raise the knowledge level on sex and reproductive health among children of appropriate ages.

      (14) Reduce environmental pollution infliction on children.

      Strategies and Measures:

      (1) Increase investment in maternal and child health care. Optimize the allocation of health resources, increase appropriation in maternal and child health care in rural and remote areas, and promote equity and accessibility of basic medical and health services for children.

      (2) Strengthen the system of maternal and child health services. Establish a standardized maternal and child health care institution sponsored respectively by governments at provincial, city and county levels. Strengthen a maternal and child health service network at county, township and village levels, and improve the grassroots maternal and child health service system. Advance the building of a medical care and service network for children, set up pediatrics department in general hospitals above level two and in maternal and child health care institutions above the county level, increase children's hospitals, and standardize wards for newborn babies. Step up personnel training and improve services in children's health sector.

      (3) Improve children's health care services and management. Promote the standardization of children's medical and health care departments, and develop services including neonatal health care, growth monitoring, nutritional and feeding guidance, integrated early childhood development, and assessment and guidance on psychological and behavioral development. Progressively expand child health care items in national basic public health service projects. Increase the systematic management rate of children under 3 and the health care management rate of children under 7 to over 80 percent. Bring children of migrant workers into the local community child health care management system, and raise the rate of child health care management among the floating population.

      (4) Improve the congenital anomalies prevention and treatment system. Carry out the three-level prevention and treatment measures on birth defects, raise awareness of premarital physical checkups, regulate checkup items, improve service modes, and increase the premarital checkup rate. Strengthen guidance on rational nutrition and diet during pregnancy and the prenatal period. Establish and improve the prenatal diagnosis network, and increase the detection rate of congenital anomalies during pregnancy. Carry out neonatal disease screening, diagnosis and treatment, raise the screening rate of inherited metabolic diseases including congenital hypothyroidism and neonatal phenylketonuria (PKU) to over 80 percent, increase the neonatal hearing screening rate to over 60 percent, and improve the treatment and recovery rate of confirmed cases. of birth-defect prevention and treatment, especially among the target population.

      (5) Strengthen child disease prevention and treatment. Expand the coverage of the national immunization program, reinforce the construction and maintenance of the cold-chain vaccine management system, and regulate vaccination. Popularize elementary knowledge on child health, especially urban and rural communities. Enhance child health-related scientific and technological research, accelerate the applicationg of research findings, make better use of appropriate technologies, and diminish the mortality rate associated with neonatal asphyxia, pneumonia, and congenital heart disease. Regulate pediatric diagnosis and treatment. Encourage R﹠D and production of children's medicines, extend the scope and dosage forms of pediatric drugs on the national essential drug list, and improve the pediatric medicine catalogue. Incorporate the prevebtiong and comprehensive services of maternal-neonatal HIV/AIDS transmission and congenital syphilis into routine maternal and child care, heighten the detection rate of HIV/AIDS among pregnant and lying-in women to 80 percent and of syphilis to 70 percent, and raise to over 90 percent the maternal-neonatal transmission intervention rate among pregnant and lying-in women infected with HIV/AIDS or syphilis to their babies.

      (6) Prevent and control childhood injury. Formulate and implement a multi-sectoral childhood injury intervention plan, intensify law enforcement and supervision, create a safe study and living environment for children, and prevent and control accidents causing major injury, including drowning, falls, and traffic mishaps. Bring safety education into school education plans, and popularize throughout primary and middle schools, kindergartens and communities knowledge and education with respect to calamity avoidance, swimming safety, recreation safety, traffic safety, fire prevention and product safety, so as to raise parents and children's self-protection awareness and abilities with respect to self-protection, self-rescue, disaster prevention and hazard avoidance. Establish and improve safety and health management systems and an emergency management mechanism for campus injury incidents in schools and kindergartens. Establish and improve childhood injury monitoring and reporting systems. Raise people's awareness and improve their abilities with respect to child protection at times of disaster and emergency, and provide disaster-stricken children with timely and effective medical, daily life, education, and psychological rehabilitation services.

      (7) Improve children's nutritional status. Strengthen construction and management of baby-friendly hospitals, improve and implement relevant policies supporting breast-feeding, and proactively popularize breast-feeding. Give guidance on scientific feeding, rational diet and supplementary nutrients, and upgrade parents' scientific infant-feeding knowledge. Enhance health care skills training and prevent and cure child nutritional diseases, including malnutrition, anemia and obesity. Carry out nutrition and health intervention projects among preschool children in poverty-stricken areas, and continue to carry out nutrition improvement projects aimed at primary and middle school students. Enhance publicity and popularize knowledge on iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) prevention and treatment, and raise the intake rate of approved iodized salt in iodine-deficient areas.

      (8) Promote child fitness. Implement The tational Standard on Students' Physical Health in an all-round way. Rationally arrange students' study, rest and recreational hours, and ensure their hours of sleep and one-hour daily on-campus sports activities. Encourage and support schools in making sports facilities available after class and on holidays. Improve and carry out the system of health checkups and fitness monitoring and establish physical health records for students.

      (9) Reinforce guidance and intervention on children's health. Step up health care management in child care institutions, primary and middle schools, conduct education and guidance on disease prevention, psychological health, growth and health care during puberty, and improve children's physical and mental health. Help children cultivate healthy behavior and lifestyle. Strengthen children's visual, hearing and oral health care. Prevent children from smoking, and from alcohol and narcotics abuse. Prohibit sales of tobacco, alcohol and illicit drugs to children.

      (10) Constitute a public service network on child psychological health. Set up child psychology departments (clinics) and posts for specialist physicians at children's hospitals, psychiatric hospitals and maternal and child health institutions where conditions allow. Schools should set up psychological consultancy rooms, and include in their workforce full-time teachers of psychological health. Offer training of mental health professionals.

      (11) Enhance child reproductive health services. Incorporate reproductive health and sex education into the compulsory education curriculum, expand the number of reproductire health and sex service institutions, strengthen capacity building, provide appropriate services to children of suitable age, and meet their consultancy and treatment needs.

      (12) Guarantee the safety of children's foods and products. Improve national standards and certification criteria for testing and quality control of infant food and products, raise quality awareness among producers and enterprises, set up monitoring, testing and early-warning mechanisms on infant foods safety, strengthen supervision at food markets in rural areas, and crack down on illicit production and marketing of fake or shoddy foods. Step up supervision on the production and sale of baby products and toys, and the operation of amusement facilities. Improve the recall system for defective children's toys and products .

      (13) Intensify environmental protection and management. Control and tackle air, water and soil pollution and industrial, daily life and rural diffuser pollution, and strengthen protection of drinking water sources. Enhance supervision to ensure that exposure levels of major persistent organic pollutants and heavy metals (lead, cadmium, etc.) comply with national standards.
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      Education of ChildrenEducation of Children

      (1)Promote integrated early childhood development for children aged 0-3.

      (2)Basically popularize preschool education. Raise the gross three-year preschool kindergarten enrolment rate to 70 percent, and the gross one-year preschool kindergarten enrolment rate to 95 percent; increase the number of urban public kindergartens, and establish and efficiently run public central kindergartens and village kindergartens in every township.

      (3) Raise to 95 percent the retention rate of nine-year compulsory education, including equal education for migrant children and education for disabled children.

      (4) Popularize senior middle school education, and increase the gross enrolment rate to 90 percent.

      (5) Expand the scale of secondary vocational education, and improve its quality.

      (6) Ensure equal education for all children, balance educational resources allocation, and narrow rural and urban disparities, regional disparities and inter-school disparities.

      (7) Improve the standardized construction level of schools, and reduce the number of run-down schools.

      (8) Constantly improve education quality and efficiency, and promote students' comprehensive quality and ability in an all-round way.

      Strategies and Measures:

      (1) Implement the development strategy of giving priority to education. Ensure that educational development is given priority throughout economic and social development planning, prioritize investment in education when allocating fiscal funds, and give priority when distributing public resources to meeting education and human resources development needs. Improve mechanisms and policies, encourage non-governmental sectors to run schools, and continuously increase educational input from social resources.

      (2) Safeguard children's rights to education according to law. Governments at all levels should organize and urge school-age children to enter school and receive compulsory education, help solve any difficulties they may encounter in receiving compulsory education, and take measures to prevent them from dropping out of school. Parents or other guardians should ensure that school-age children receive and finish compulsory education in accordance with the law. Schools should patiently educate and help students with moral and behavioral shortcomings or with learning difficulties, and are prohibited from expelling students or punishing them in any way that amounts to expulsion for reasons that infringe upon State laws and regulations.

      (3) Promote the equalization of basic public education services. Adhere to the public welfare and universal nature of basic public education, and step up the establishment of an integrated urban-rural education development security mechanism and a basic public education service system. Balance resources, including teachers, equipment, books and school buildings, step up the standardized construction of schools providing compulsory education, improve teachers' exchange systems, and narrow disparities in school running conditions, teachers' competence and education quality.

      (4) Speed up the development of children's education among ethnic minorities and in areas inhabited by ethnic minority groups. Strengthen support for ethnic minorities' education, proactively improve conditions for running primary and middle schools in ethnic minority-inhabited areas, rural and pastoral areas, remote mountainous areas and border areas, consolidate and update nine-year compulsory education levels, and encourage girls to receive preschool and senior middle school education. Vigorously push forward bilingual education, universalize the standard spoken and written Chinese language, respect and ensure ethnic minority children's rights to receive education in their native languages, and enhance bilingual preschool education. Exert greater efforts to train teachers in ethnic minority-inhabited areas. Further improve support provided by developed areas and mid-sized and large cities for ethnic minority-inhabited areas.

      (5) Offer scientific guidance for rearing children aged 0-3. Promote non-profit universal guidance institutions for children's comprehensive development. Provide early childhood care and education guidance to children aged 0-3 and their families on the basis of kindergartens and communities. Speed up the training of professionals in early childhood education for children aged 0-3.

      (6) Accelerate the development of preschool education for children of 3-6 years old. Clarify the responsibilities of governments at all levels for promoting preschool education. Bring the development of preschool education into urban construction plans and new socialist countryside construction plans. Establish a kindergarten-running system featuring government leadership, participation by the general public and simultaneous development of public and private kindergartens. Proactively promote development of public kindergartens, and provide preschool education public services which are "widely covered and able to ensure basic needs." Encourage non-governmental sectors to establish kindergartens in various forms, and guide and support private kindergartens in offering universal services.

      Focus on developing preschool education in rural areas. Establish at least one public central kindergarten in each township. Large villages should independently set up their own kindergartens, and small villages should either independently build branch kindergartens or jointly run kindergarten. Provide flexible and diversified preschool education services and assign full-time teachers to make inspection tours in areas of scattered population. Gradually improve the preschool education networks at county, township and village levels. Take effective measures to solve the problem of migrant children's admission to kindergartens. Establish financial aid mechanisms for preschool education aimed at helping children from poverty-stricken families, orphans and disabled children receive universal preschool education. Develop preschool education especially for disabled children in accordance with local conditions. Encourage special schools and rehabilitation institutions for people with disabilities to establish kindergartens for disabled children. Strengthen supervision and management of preschool education.

      (7) Ensure that children affected by migration have equal opportunities to receive compulsory education. Rely mainly on local government management and local full-time public primary and middle schools to solve migrant children's schooling problems. Formulate and implement measures that help migrant children who have finished compulsory education to sit the senior middle school entrance examinations in the cities where they live. Speed ​​up the construction of boarding schools in rural areas and give priority to meeting the accommodation needs of "left-behind children" (children whose parents have moved to other regions of China to work).

      (8) Safeguard the rights of children with special needs to receive compulsory education. Implement financial aid policies on schooling for orphans, disabled children and children from poverty-stricken families. Accelerate the development of special education and basically attain the objective of establishing one special education school in each prefecture (or prefecture-level city), and in each county (or county-level city) with a population of more than 300,000 and with a fairly large group of disabled children. Enlarge the enrollment of disabled children in regular classes, special education classes at regular schools and boarding schools and raise their educational level. Create conditions under which street children, children whose behavior constitutes serious misconduct and juvenile delinquents can equally receive compulsory education.

      (9) Speed up the development of senior middle school education. Progressively expand financial investment in senior middle school education, and increase support for senior middle school education in poverty-stricken areas of central and western China. Promote diversified senior middle school education to meet children's different development needs.

      (10) Proactively promote vocational education. Deepen the reform of vocational education in line with the purpose of service and employment guidance, and with focus on quality improvement. Expand the scale of vocational education and offer study programs and courses that meet the needs of economic and social development. Enhance the appeal of vocational education and progressively promote implementation of the policy of free secondary vocational education.

      (11) Promote quality-oriented education in an all-round way. Establish a scientific outlook on education and fully implement educational policies. Stick to the principle of "catering to all students," and help students to achieve comprehensive development morally, intellectually, physically and aesthetically. Enhance students' learning, practice, innovation and social adaptability abilities, and develop their ideological and moral, scientific, cultural and physical qualities.

      (12) Strengthen and improve ideological and moral education in schools. Adhere to the principle of "people-orientated education, moral education first" and include the socialist core value system in the whole process of national education. Incorporate moral education into each step of the teaching and educating process and into all aspects of school education, family education and social education. Explore new modes and enrich the content of moral education, and continue to enhance the appeal and influence of moral education. Enhance the pertinence and practicality of moral education. Bring the role of the Communist Youth League and Young Pioneers into full play in school's moral education programs.

      (13) Raise children's scientific literacy level. Carry out various activities related to popular science and social practice, encourage more children to be interested in or keen on science and technology, develop children's scientific inquiry competency, and their abilities comprehensively to use knowledge to solve problems. Make full use of sci-tech education bases, teenagers' sci-tech education bases and other resources such as sci-tech museums and scientific research institutions, to provide venues and opportunities for children to participate in scientific practice. Establish a mechanism to integrate after-school practical science activities with school courses. Enhance the building of a science popularization network both inside and outside school, set up and consolidate a teaching group of both full-time and part-time personnel to popularize science among children.

      (14) Accelerate educational and teaching reform. Actively promote reforms to curricula, teaching contents and methods, and the examination and enrollment systems. Set up quality standards, monitoring and evaluation systems in the educational sector. Improve the systems of evaluating students' overall quality and academic assessment. Improve and fully implement the system wherein children receiving compulsory education can be exempted from entrance examinations to nearby schools, and solve students' school-selection problems. Establish monitoring and announcing systems on the homework burden, and reduce the amounts of homework and number of examinations to lower the student study load.

      (15) Improve the quality and competence of teachers. Strengthen the professional ideals and ethics education of teachers so as to improve their professional ethics and quality. Regard teachers' professional ethics as the primary standard for teacher assessment, appointment and evaluation. Continue to enhance the qualified rate and educational level of teachers, improve the teachers' training system and enhance their teaching level and capabilities.

      (16) Promote modernization and the information and communication system in the education sector in an all-round way. Bring IT-based education into the national overall information and communication system strategy. Expand the proportion of rural primary and middle schools that have Internet access. Expand the coverage of modernized distance learning networks in rural areas and establish educational information and communication systems in schools of various levels and types in both urban and rural areas.

      (17) Establish schools of a friendly type that features democracy, civility, harmony, equality and safety. Establish a sound relationship between teachers and students wherein students respect teachers and teachers cherish students. Safeguard students' rights to participate in school affairs. Create favorable learning and living conditions beneficial to students' health, provide safe drinking water and sanitary toilets, and improve the conditions of canteens and dormitories in boarding schools.

      (18) Improve the management and supervision mechanism of school fee collection. Improve the management regulations on collection of school fees, standardize school fee collection practices and school fee management and utilization.
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      Welfare of ChildrenWelfare of Children

      (1) Expand the scope of child welfare and promote the shift from a stop-gap approach to one that is moderately universal.

      (2) Guarantee children's access to basic medical and health care services and raise the coverage and level of children's basic medical security. Provide medical aid to children from poverty-stricken families and to children suffering from serious diseases.

      (3) Basically meet the public service needs of migrant and "left-behind children" .

      (4) Meet orphans' basic, living, education, medical care and equal employment opportunity needs, and raise the family fostering and adoption rate of orphans.

      (5) Raise the rescue and recovery rate of disabled children aged 0-6.

      (6) Reduce the number of street children and their recurring vagrancy.

      (7) Increase the number of professional service institutions equipped to rear orphans, protect street children and rehabilitate disabled children. Set up a child welfare institution that performs the comprehensive functions of rearing, medical rehabilitation, education and skills training, and an aid and protection institution for street children in cities above the prefecture level and in key counties (or county-level cities).

      (8) Guarantee the rights of HIV/AIDS-affected children and children of convicts under the age of 18 to livelihood, education, health care and equal employment opportunities.

      Strategies and Measures:

      (1) Raise the supply capacity and level of public services for children. Improve the basic public service system, increase financial investment in child welfare, and progressively realize equalization of basic public services for children.

      (2) Ensure children's access to basic health care. Improve children's basic medical insurance within the framework of the basic medical insurance system for urban residents and/or the new rural cooperative medical care system. Progressively upgrade the level of basic medical insurance for children and alleviate the burden of medical expenses on the families of sick children.

      (3) Raise the level of medical assistance for children. Increase medical aid to children suffering from serious diseases and children from impoverished families. Give subsidies, according to relevant regulations, to children from impoverished families and to orphans and disabled children who have participated in either basic medical insurance for urban residents and/or new rural cooperative medical care system, to help pay the individual portion of their medical costs.

      (4) Expand the scope of child welfare. Improve the security system of minimum living standards for urban and rural residents. Provide security through categorization to elevate the living standards of children from poverty-stricken families. Explore methods of carrying out nutritional interventions and providing subsidies to children, and improve children's nutritional status. Progressively raise the standards and widen the scope of living allowances applicable to impoverished students at rural boarding schools that provide compulsory education.

      (5) Establish and improve the security system for orphans. Implement orphans' social security policy to meet their living, education, medical rehabilitation and housing needs. Help able-bodied orphans of an appropriate age find jobs. Establish a surrogate raising system to ensure that HIV/AIDS-affected children and the minor children of convicts have access to livelihood, education, medical care and equal opportunities in employment.

      (6) Improve fostering and the service mode for orphans. Improve the establishment of child welfare institutions and raise the overall management and service level of these institutions. Explore a rearing mode to suit orphans' physical and mental development. Improve the orphan adoption system, standardize the home fostering system and encourage social sponsorship. Establish and improve a system of supervision, support and evaluation of home fostering and rearing under guardianship, and improve the rearing quality of home-fostered orphans and of orphans under the guardianship of their relatives.

      (7) Establish and improve the rehabilitation, aid and service system for disabled children. Establish a registration system for disabled children aged 0-6 and provide children from poverty-stricken families with subsidies, according to relevant regulations, to meet their basic recovery needs. Give priority to the treatment and rehabilitation system for rescuing disabled children and improve the professional service level of rehabilitation institutions for disabled children. Set up a rehabilitation and service system for disabled children by making professional rehabilitation institutions the system mainstay, communities the foundation and families the supporter. Reinforce rehabilitation referral services for disabled children and carry out multi-layered vocational training and practical skills training to enhance disabled children's self-care abilities, social adaptability and equal participation in social life.

      (8) Enhance the relief and protection of street children. Improve the aid and protection network for street children and the system safeguarding street children's living, education, management and trips back to their hometowns. Provide street children with education, medical services, psychological guidance, behavioral adjustment, and skills training. Raise the professional and socialized levels of aiding and protecting street children, encourage and support all social sectors to protect and help them. Explore an early prevention and intervention mechanism to deal with the issue of street children.

      (9) Establish and improve the service mechanism for migrant children and "left-behind children." Proactively and steadily promote the reform of the household registration system and social security system and progressively incorporate the migrant population into local economic and social development plans. Establish a registration system for migrant children aged under 16 to lay a solid foundation for them to enjoy public services such as education and medical and health care. Integrate community resources to improve the community-based and floating population-oriented management and service network, and raise community service consciousness and improve community service abilities. Improve the service mechanism for "left-behind children" in rural areas, enhance psychological, emotional and behavioral guidance for these children and improve their parents' sense of guardianship and responsibility.
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      Children and the Social EnvironmentChildren and the Social Environment

      (1) Build up a social atmosphere of respect and care for children and eliminate discrimination against and harm to children.

      (2) Establish a family education guidance and service system adaptable to urban and rural development.

      (3) Improve parental quality and raise the level of family education.

      (4) Provide rich cultural products beneficial to the healthy growth of children.

      (5) Protect children from unhealthy information spread via the Internet, mobile phones, games, advertisements, books, films or TV programs.

      (6) Help children to form the habit of reading. Increase reading time on and reading amount. Ensure that more than 90 percent of children read at least one book every year.

      (7) Increase in counties and townships the number of after-school activity centers and facilities to provide education, sci-tech, culture, sports and entertainment activities for children. Maintain the public welfare nature of these centers and facilities and promote their utilization rate and service quality. Provide each neighborhood or township (town) with at least one full-time or part-time social worker specializing in work concerning children.

      (8) Ensure that over 90 percent of urban and rural communities set up children's home where children and their families can enjoy games and entertainment, receive education, health care, social psychological support and referral services.

      (9) Safeguard children's rights to participate in family life as well as school and social affairs.

      (10) Safeguard children's rights to leisure activities and entertainment.

      Strategies and Measures:

      (1) Carry out publicity and education activities themed "Children First" and "Children's Rights" , hence raising public awareness of children's rights, especially children's rights to participate.

      (2) Incorporate guidance services of family education into the urban and rural public service system. Set up family education guidance bodies at all levels and ensure that 90 percent of urban communities and 80 percent of administrative villages have parents' schools or service branches which provide family education guidance. Establish a training system of family education workers and an admittance system to guidance service institutions so as to cultivate a qualified full-time and part-time family education workforce. Increase the input of public finance for family education guidance and service system, and encourage and support non-governmental sectors' participation in family education.

      (3) Carry out family education guidance and publicity activities. Popularize family education knowledge continuously through various channels and in multiple forms. Ensure that parents receive family education guidance and that they participate in family education practice at least twice a year. Strengthen studies on family education and promote efficient applications of relevant research results.

      (4) Create a favorable family environment for the healthy growth of children. Advocate equal, civilized, harmonious and stable family relations and encourage better communication between parents and children. Prevent and prohibit domestic maltreatment, neglect and violence.

      (5) Create a favorable cultural environment for children's healthy physical and mental development. Guide the mass media in producing and spreading information beneficial to children's healthy growth, and make cultural products more informative and interesting. Formulate preferential policies that encourage and support the composition, production and release of quality children's books, films, TV programs, songs, children's folk rhymes, dances, dramas, comics and animations, and games. Promote well-designed children's radio and TV programs and strictly control the broadcasting of programs unsuitable for children through the mass media. Organize children's cultural events and develop a slew of children's cultural brands. Enhance supervision of the cultural market, and strengthen investigation of and dealing with publications, children's toys or accessories that spread pornography, murder, violence, superstition or pseudoscience. Attach great importance to the composition, translation and publication of children's books in ethnic minority languages.

      (6) Regulate advertising and commercial activities related to children. Strictly implement relevant regulations and policies, prohibit advertising of substitute breast milk products and standardize advertisements on children-related products (services), tobacco and alcohol. Standardize and limit children's participation in commercial performances and activities.

      (7) Create conditions for children to make appropriate use of the Internet. Open public reading rooms with electronic facilities in public-welfare cultural activity centers, children's activity centers that offer free Internet services, and public Internet facilities in communities that are free or offered at preferential prices to children. Promote the usage of "green" Internet software and prohibit the spreading of negative information so as to create a sound on-line environment for children. Strengthen management of business venues that provide Internet services. Urge Internet bars to operate a real-name registration system, to place "No Admission to Minors" signs in prominent positions, and make sure no juveniles enter the venues. Crack down on illegal Internet bars. Enhance family and school guidance on children's use of the Internet and prevent children from Internet addiction.

      (8) Purify the environments surrounding schools. Implement relevant measures safeguarding public order nearby schools and ensuring school security. Establish public security posts adjacent to schools to patrol areas of complicated public order. Place security guards at school and kindergarten entrances. Set up traffic warning signs and security facilities nearby schools in strict accordance with relevant regulations. Assign police officers and traffic wardens in maintaining orderly traffic on roads and streets nearby schools and kindergartens where traffic conditions are complicated. Intensify supervision of business venues close to schools. Internet bars, game rooms and entertainment venues are prohibited within a 200-meter radius of schools.

      (9) Promote construction of children's activity facilities. Incorporate construction of children's activity facilities and centers into local economic and social development plans, increase the input of public lottery funding for building children's activity facilities and centers, and enhance support in setting up and operating children's activity facilities and centers in rural areas. Standardize management of children's after-school activity facilities and centers. Entrance to public cultural, sci-tech and sports facilities and venues should be open free to children or at preferential rates. Set up special activity sectors or zones for children where conditions allow. Enhance construction of patriotic education bases.

      (10) Enhance the service functions of urban and rural communities for children. Establish a community-based operating mechanism to protect children and fully explore and reasonably utilize community resources. Mobilize schools, kindergartens, hospitals, social groups and volunteers to participate child protection. Integrate community resources to build children's activity centers, employ full-time or part-time staff, increase efficiency in running these centers and provide services to children and their families.

      (11) Create suitable reading conditions for children. Promote a child-oriented book classification system that recommends books suitable for children according to age, and offer suggestions and guidance to parents on choosing books for their children. Expand the number of community libraries and rural mobile libraries, set up children's reading rooms or sectors in public libraries, and establish children's libraries in counties (cities or districts) where conditions allow. Allocate a number of children's books to rural reading rooms. Organize extensive reading activities that encourage and guide children to read books on their own initiative.

      (12) Safeguard children's rights to participation and expression. Incorporate children's participation into decision-making processes on children's affairs and services. Involve children's representatives in decision-making on important children-related issues and listen to their opinions. Smooth channels for children's participation and expression, increase children's opportunities to take part in social practice and encourage them to participate, within reason, in social affairs and public welfare activities, so as to improve their social participation abilities.

      (13) Enhance children's environmental protection awareness. Carry out publicity and education on environmental and ecological civilization. Encourage children's proactive participation in environmental protection activities, guide them in living a low-carbon lifestyle and encourage their environment-friendly consumption of resources.

      (14) Build a capable body of social workers specializing in work concerning children. Intensify these workers' capability training to enable them to play active roles in serving children and safeguarding children's rights and interests.

      (15) Carry out international exchange and cooperation to promote children's development. Enforce international conventions such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, expand bilateral and multilateral exchange and cooperation, and make known China's achievements in pushing forward children's development.
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      Legal Protection of ChildrenLegal Protection of Children

      (1) Improve the laws and regulations for children's protection and the legal protection mechanisms.

      (2) Implement the laws and regulations on child protection and further carry out the principles of "Children First" and "Children's Maximum Interests."

      (3) Safeguard children's birth and identity registration according to law.

      (4) Keep in check the increasingly skewed sex ratio at birth, and strive for a rational sex ratio at birth.

      (5) Improve the present system to ensure that children receive effective guardianship.

      (6) Popularize legal education among primary and middle school students to raise their legal awareness and self-protection consciousness and abilities.

      (7) Prevent and Crack down on infringing wents upon children's personal rights and prohibit all forms of violence against children.

      (8) Protect children's legal property rights and interests in accordance with law.

      (9) Prohibit child laborers (aged under 16) and protect them from economic exploitation.

      (10) Guarantee children's access to timely and effective legal aid and judicial assistance according to law.

      (11) Prevent juveniles from committing illegal and Crimes, and reduce the proportion of juvenile delinquents among criminal offenders.

      (12) The judicial system should make further efforts to meet the special needs of children's physical and mental development.

      Strategies and Measures:

      (1) Continue to improve the legal system of child protection. Promote legislation on children's welfare, preschool education and family education. Review, amend and abolish regulations and policies incommensurate with child protection. Strengthen the practicability of laws and regulations regarding child protection.

      (2) Enhance publicity and education on law. Raise the legal awareness, sense of responsibility and capability of families, schools, personages of all circles and of children themselves with respect to protection of children's rights.

      (3) Strengthen law enforcement supervision. Specify the subject of law enforcement, reinforce legal responsibilities, and carry out special inspections on law enforcement on a regular basis. Enhance the knowledge and skills training of law enforcement personnel on the protection of children's rights and interests in order to raise their awareness and the level of law enforcement in this regard.

      (4) Further implement regulation on registration at birth. Raise the birth registration awareness among people of all circles, and improve relevant rules and policies. Strengthen coordination and information sharing between different departments, and simplify and standardize the registration procedure.

      (5) Eliminate discrimination against girls. Advocate gender equality concept and raise public's awareness. Establish an interest-oriented mechanism in favor of girls and their families, and improve the economic and social status of rural families with daughters. Crack down on non-medical purposes of fetus sex determination through type-B ultrasonic scanning and sex-selective pregnancy termination.

      (6) Establish and improve the system of child guardianship and supervision. Raise the obligation consciousness of parents and other guardians, and improve and implement the recusal system through which to withdraw parents' or other guardians' qualification as guardians should they fail properly to perform this role or seriously infringe upon the rights and interests of children under their guardianship. Progressively establish a guardianship system that is based on families, guaranteed by the supervision of communities, schools and other relevant units and personnel, and supplemented by State custody.

      (7) Protect children's personal rights. Strengthen the comprehensive management of public order, crack down on rape, abduction, kidnapping, maltreatment and abandonment that infringe upon children's personal rights; as well as on the criminal offenses of organizing, coercing and inveigling children into committing delinquencies. Deal severely with the crimes of using children for pick-pocketing, begging, commercial acrobatic performance, and prostitution. Protect children from all forms of sexual abuse. Establish mechanisms on the prevention, mandatory reporting, response, emergency rescue, treatment and counseling on cases of violence against children. Mobilize resources to explore and establish children's shelters. Enhance publicity on laws on the prevention and punishment related to child trafficking. Raise the "anti-abduction" awareness and ability of both children and parents, and provide physical and psychological rehabilitation services and appropriate placements for rescued children. Prohibit recruiting children aged below 16 for work and prohibit job introductions for children under 16. Establish a sound monitoring and penalty mechanism to ban illegal employment of child labor. Strictly implement national regulations on protecting juvenile laborers of 16 to 17 years of age, and prohibit assignment to these laborers of heavy, toxic, harmful or dangerous work or jobs. Protect the privacy of children in accordance with the law.

      (8) Strengthen protection of children's property rights and interests. Safeguard children's rights to property proceeds, property bestowals, intellectual property, and inheritance and independent control over property within a certain purview, according to law.

      (9) Improve the legal aid and judicial assistance mechanism for children. Further expand the coverage of legal aid to children and improve the legal aid network for children. Strengthen the grassroots legal aid working group, support and encourage grassroots legal service organizations, social organizations and public institutions in using their own resources to provide children with legal aid, so as to ensure children obtain in judicial proceedings efficient and fast legal services and judicial assistance.

      (10) Promote the establishment and improvement of judiciary organs geared specifically to minors. Implement the Law on the Protection of Minors and explore ways of professionalizing the proceedings of cases involving minors. Accelerate the establishment in public security sectors of special agencies or specialized personnel for juvenile cases.

      (11) Improve handling of children suspected of criminal and illegal acts. Uphold the policy of educating, helping and redeeming and adhering to the principle of education in the first place and punishment as subsidiary by exerting lighter punishments on child suspects or even exempting them from punishment according to law. Abide by the principle that all criminal cases involving children below the age of 16 should be heard in private sessions, and that cases involving children over the age of 16 should be heard generally in private sessions in accordance with relevant laws, so as to respect and protect children's legitimate rights and interests. Juvenile offenders undergoing detention or serving prison terms should be housed separately from adult offenders. Minors in reeducation through custody or labor, and juvenile drug abusers who are forced to accept compulsive isolated drug rehabilitation should be housed separately from adults. Juveniles discharged from detention houses, prisons or reformatories or after serving their respective terms should not be subjected to any form of discrimination upon returning to school, entering a higher grade or looking for jobs.

      (12) Improve the correction system for children whose behavior constitutes serious misconduct. Establish an operating mechanism comprising the family, school and public for joint participation that exerts early involvement, effective intervention and behavior correction for such children. Enhance education and management of children whose behavior constitutes serious misconduct, explore effective ways and methods of specialized school education and behavior correction, and ensure that students in such schools enjoy equal rights in education, employment and other areas. Provide assistance and education to minors on probation for offenses and to juveniles undergoing community corrections for their illegal acts.
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      2 NPAs

      The "2 NPAs" refer to the National Program for Women's Development (2011-2020) and the National Program for Child Development (2011-2020).

      Prior to the 2 NPAs, China had issued the National Program for Women's Development (1995-2000) and the National Program of Action for Child Development in China in the 1990s, and the National Program for Women's Development (2001-2010) and the National Program for Children's Development (2001-2010).

      China National Program for Women's Development (2011-2020)

      Equality between men and women is a fundamental State policy in China. The level of gender equality is an important indicator of social civilization and progress. Women account for half of the Chinese population, constituting an important force in China's economic and social development. Safeguarding women's lawful rights and interests while promoting their development, and advancing women's development while protecting their rights and interests, is an intrinsic driving force, and important channel towards women's liberation. Protecting the rights and interests of women, promoting women's development, and pushing forward gender equality are vital to the country's economic and social development as well as to the civilization and progress of the Chinese nation.

      In 2001, the State Council promulgated the National Program for Women's Development in China (2001-2010) (hereinafter referred to as The Program). The Program major objectives, strategies and measures were set down according to six priority areas of development, namely: women and the economy; women's participation in decision-making and management; women's education; women and health; women and the law; women and the environment.

      Over the past ten years, China has incorporated women's development into its overall national economic and social development plan. To vigorously implement The Program, the legal system safeguarding women's lawful rights and interests has been constantly improved, and the government has strengthened its managerial responsibility, expanded funding, and enhanced social advocacy. By 2010, most major targets set out in The Program were achieved with significant progress in women's development and gender equality. Women enjoyed more social security benefits and the situation of impoverished women improved. The level of women's political participation raised, and their awareness of participation in social affairs enhanced. Women's educational level became steadily higher, and the education gap between the sexes narrower. Women enjoyed a better health and greater average life expectancy. Legislation and law enforcement relative to women's rights and interests were consistently strengthened, and women's rights and interests better guaranteed. Equality between men and women, as a fundamental State policy, became more popularized in China, and the social environment for women's development further improved. The period from 2001 to 2010 was one of the most outstanding historical periods of women's development in China.

      Restricted and affected as they are, however, by the level of productive forces and that of social civilization at the primary stage of socialism, women's development still faces many problems and challenges. Sex discrimination in employment still exists, in terms of income and access to resources. Women's participation in decision-making and management is still low, and the gender gap in education exists. Women's health care needs are yet to be better met, the social environment for women's development to be optimized, and further improvements are called for in levels of social security available to women. The interests-related demands of women of different social strata have become increasingly diversified, and urban-rural imbalances in women's development are yet to be fully addressed.

      In the coming ten years, as economic globalization grows and international competition becomes more and more intense, the international community will in the process of promoting human development pay more attention to women's development and gender equality. The period from now till 2020 is crucial to the drive to comprehensively build a moderately prosperous society in China. As economic and social development rapidly advances, rare opportunities and new challenges for women's development coexist. There is still a long way to go in promoting women's comprehensive development and realizing equality between men and women.

      The National Program on the Development of Chinese Women (2011-2020) has been formulated on the basis of the basic principles prescribed in the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, the stipulations of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women and other related laws, the purposes of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women and other international conventions and documents, the general objectives and requirements of economic and social development, and the actual situation concerning women's development and gender equality in China.

      I. Guidelines and Basic Principles

      1. Guidelines

      Hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics; be guided by Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of the "Three Represents"; thoroughly apply the Scientific Outlook on Development; carry out the fundamental State policy of equality between men and women; safeguard women's lawful rights and interests; improve the environment for women's development; enhance women's social status; encourage women to exercise democratic rights on an equal footing and according to law, and to equally participate in economic and social development so as to equally benefit from the achievements of reform and development.

      2. Basic Principles

      (1) The principle of comprehensive development. Based on the basic needs of women's survival and development, focus on addressing practical problems bearing on the immediate interests of women, with a view to achieving women's comprehensive development in political, economic, cultural, social and other spheres.
      (2) The principle of equal development. Improve and implement the laws, regulations and policies promoting equality between men and women, pay more attention to social equity, construct a civilized and advanced gender culture, create a favorable social environment, narrow the gap in social status between men and women, and promote the harmonious development of men and women.
      (3) The principle of coordinated development. Intensify support for women's development in rural poverty-stricken and ethnic minority areas; narrow the gaps between urban and rural women in per capita income, life quality, culture and education, medical and health services, and social security through improving the rules and regulations, increasing financial input and optimizing project layouts.
      (4) The principle of women's participation. Ensure women's rights to participate in economic and social development according to law, respect women as a major social force, and instruct and support women in achieving individual progress and development while promoting socialist construction in economic, political, cultural, social and ecological civilization fields.

      II. General Objectives

      Incorporate gender awareness in the legal system and public policies, promote women's comprehensive development, enhance harmonious development between men and women, and promote the synchronizing of women's development with economic and social development. Ensure women's equal access to basic medical and health care services to significantly improve women's life quality and health; ensure women's equal rights and access to education to continuously raise their educational level; ensure women's equal access to economic resources and equal participation in economic development to manifestly enhance their economic status; ensure women's equal participation in the administration and management of State and social affairs to increase their level of political participation; ensure women's equal access to social security to notably improve their level of social welfare; ensure women's equal participation in the decision-making and management of environmental affairs to improve the environment for their development; and ensure the improvement of the legal system on the protection of women's rights and interests to steadfastly safeguard their lawful rights and interests.

      III. Areas for Development, Major Objectives and Strategies and Measures

      1. Health of Women
      2. Education of Women
      3. Women and the Economy
      4. Women in Decision Making and Management
      5. Women and the Social Security
      6. Women and the Environment
      7. Women and the Law 

      China National Program for Child Development (2011-2020)

      Childhood is a critical period of human development. Providing the opportunities and conditions necessary for children's survival, development, protection and participation, best meeting the needs of children's growth, and bringing children's potential into play lays a sound foundation for children's development and future life.

      Children are the future of humankind and as such, an important resource for society's sustainable development. Children's development is an important part of a country's socio-economic development as well as of its civilization and progress. Promoting children's development is of strategic importance to improving the comprehensive quality of the Chinese nation and building China into a human resources-powerful country.

      In 2001 the State Council promulgated the National Program for Child Development in China (2001-2010) (hereinafter referred to as The Program). The Program proposed major objectives, strategies and measures in the four aspects of children's health, education, legal protection, and the environment. Over the past ten years, the State has improved to the legal system for protecting children's rights, enhanced government responsibilities, and continuously improved children-related work along legal and scientific lines. It has thus enabled remarkable improvements in the environment and conditions necessary for children's survival, protection and development. Children's rights have been further protected and major achievements made in children's development. By the end of 2010, major objectives of the Program were accomplished. Children's health and nutrition steadily improved. Infant mortality rate dropped from 32.2 per thousand in the 2000 to 13.1 per thousand in 2010, and the mortality rate of children under 5 dropped from 39.7 per thousand in 2000 to 16.4 per thousand in 2010. Maternal mortality rate dropped from 53.0 per 100 thousand in 2000 to 30.0 per 100 thousand As part of the national immunization plan child immunization and vaccination, rate reached by 2010 well above 90 percent. There was also a marked rise in popularization of children's education. The gross enrollment rate of preschool education rose from 35.0 percent in 2000 to 56.6 percent in 2010. Over the same ten-year period, the net enrollment rate of primary school-age children reached 99.7 percent, and the gross enrolment rates of junior middle school was 100.1 percent, and that of senior middle school 82.5 percent. Orphans, children of poverty-stricken families, disabled children, street children, HIV/AIDS-affected children and other disadvantaged children, also received more care and help.

      Owing to certain socio-economic and cultural factors, however, children's development and protection of their rights still face problems and challenges. The awareness of putting children first needs to be intensified in society and the mechanism for children's work to be improved. Regional and urban-rural disparities in children's development remain, and the level of children's development in poverty-stricken areas as a whole is still low. Birth defects were on the rise, and the sex ratio at birth remains relatively high. Public resources for preschool education are insufficient and the popularization rate of preschool education is low. There is an imbalance in development of nine-year compulsory education, evident in gaps among different schools and regions, and between rural and urban areas. Assistance to children in poverty-stricken families, orphans, foundlings, disabled children and street children urgently needs to systematised. Children-related problems stemming from migration are yet to be resolved effectively, and negative factors affecting children's healthy development still exist in the social and cultural environment. Solving the main problems of children's growth, promoting children's all-round development and rights protection, therefore, remain a major task in the coming years.

      The next decade is a crucial period for comprehensively building a moderately prosperous society in China, and there are unprecedented opportunities for child development. Adhering to and applying the Scientific Outlook on Development will create a more favorable social environment for children's healthy growth. Formulating and implementing a new program on the development of Chinese children will lay a more solid foundation for all-round individual development and for improving the comprehensive quality of the Chinese nation.

      The National Program on the Development of Chinese Children (2011-2020) is formulated in accordance with relevant laws and regulations, such as the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Minors, the purposes of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the general objectives and requirements of China's national economic and social development, and the actual situation of children's development in China.

      I. Guidelines and Basic Principles

      1. Guidelines

      Hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, follow the guidance of Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of the "Three Represents," thoroughly apply the Scientific Outlook on Development, adhere to the principle of "Putting children First," and safeguard children's rights to survival, development, protection, and participation. Narrow gaps among different regions and between rural and urban areas in children's development, improve children's welfare and overall quality, and promote the healthy growth of children in all aspects.

      2. Basic Principles

      1. Protection of children according to law. Safeguard children's legal rights according to law and promote children's healthy growth in all aspects throughout their physical and mental development process.
      2. Principle of "Putting children First." Give priority to children's interests and needs in legislation, policy planning and public resources allocation.
      3. Principle of children's maximum interests. Give full consideration to children's physical and mental development characteristics and interests when dealing with affairs concerning children, to ensure their maximum interests.
      4. Development of children on an equal footing. Create a fair social environment, and ensure equal rights and opportunities for all children without discrimination, on grounds of registered permanent residence, region, sex, ethnicity, belief, educational status, physical condition or family property.
      5. Principle of participation. Encourage and support children's participation in family, cultural and social life, create a favorable social environment for children's participation, smooth the channels through which children can express their views, and attach importance to children's opinions.

      II. General Objectives

      Improve the basic medical and health care system that covers rural and urban children, and improve children's health in body and mind. Promote equalization of fundamental public education service and ensure higher-quality education for all children. Expand welfare coverage for children and establish and improve a moderately universal welfare system for children. Enhance the socialized service level and create a children-friendly social environment. Improve the legal system and protection mechanism to protect children's legal rights and interests according to law.

      III. Areas for Development, Major Objectives and Strategies and Measures

      1. Health of Children
      2. Education of Children
      3. Welfare of Children
      4. Children and the Social Environment
      5. Legal Protection of Children

      Health of WomenHealth of Women

      (1) Ensure women's access to good basic medical and health care services throughout their life cycle, and prolong women's life expectancy.

      (2) Reduce the maternal mortality rate to less than 20 per 100,000. Gradually narrow the gap between urban and rural areas in maternal mortality, and reduce the maternal mortality rate among the migrating population.

      (3) Raise regular screenings for common gynecological diseases to over 80 percent. Increase the early diagnosis and treatment of cervical cancer and breast cancer, and reduce the mortality rate.

      (4) Control the spread among women of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

      (5) Bring down the incidence of moderate and severe anemia among pregnant and lying-in women.

      (6) Ensure that more women are informed about psychological health and ways of avoiding mental illness.

      (7) Ensure women's rights to make informed choices on contraception and birth control, reduce unwanted pregnancies and induced abortions.

      (8) Increase the proportion of women regularly participating in physical exercises.

      Strategies and Measures:

      (1) Step up maternal and child health care. Optimize distribution of  resources and expand maternal and child health care funding in rural and remote areas. Strengthen construction of non-profit maternal and child health care institutions at all levels, improve maternal and child health care service networks and grassroots health service systems, and provide all women with a consistent standard of health care services. Expedite training of maternal and child health care workers, and improve the quality and quantity of the staff of health care institutions. Step up law enforcement and supervision and thoroughly investigate and deal with any illegal acts that threaten women's health.

      (2) Strengthen sci-tech research on women's health. Relying fully on sci-tech progress, extensively plan and optimize the distribution of sci-tech resources, organize cross-departmental, cross-regional, and cross-disciplinary cooperation in key research projects, and strengthen research on major factors affecting women's health and relevant intervention measures. Encourage independent innovation, promote the application of research achievements, and spread new and appropriate technologies that are beneficial to women's health.

      (3) Improve women's reproductive health services. Widely disseminate reproductive health knowledge, improve women's self-health care consciousness and abilities, based on their physiological characteristics. Provide a standard reproductive health care service for women at adolescence, at child-bearing age, pregnancy and delivery, menopause, and old age, and help solve their health problems at each physiological stage.

      (4) Guarantee pregnant and lying-in women's safe child-delivery. Strengthen the construction of grassroots obstetric institutions and the training of their staff, and improve obstetric services and health care for pregnant and lying-in women. Endeavor to raise the rate of pregnant and lying-in women under systematic medical care management to above 85 percent, the rate of childbirth in hospitals to above 98 percent nationwide, and the rate of rural hospitalized delivery childbirths to above 96 percent. Improve first aid networks for pregnant and lying-in women, disseminate appropriate midwifery techniques, and enhance rescue and treatment of pregnant and lying-in women in critical situations. Implement the subsidy policy for rural pregnant women giving birth in hospitals. Provide pregnant and lying-in women with necessary psychological guidance and health education, disseminate knowledge on spontaneous vaginal delivery, help them to choose a scientific mode of child delivery, and control the number of cesarean deliveries.

      (5) Improve prevention and treatment of common gynecological diseases. Disseminate knowledge on prevention and treatment of common gynecological diseases and establish a regular screening system for such diseases. Increase input on special projects, and expand women's cervical and breast cancer screening coverage. Strengthen training on professional knowledge and quality service among grassroots maternal and child health care workers and family planning service providers. Promote the cervical and breast cancer diagnosis and treatment capability of medical institutions and provide subsidies for treatment of critical impoverished patients according to regulations.

      (6) Prevent and control the spread of HIV/AIDS and STDs. Improve the operating mechanism for the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS and STDs. Improve education for target groups of women on disease prevention and treatment, and disseminate effective intervention measures. Intensify supervision on places of entertainment, and severely crack down on drug abuse, prostitution, whoring and other illegal behaviors. Include blocking mother-to-infant transmission of HIV/AIDS, syphilis and hepatitis B in regular maternal and child health care work, step up provision of comprehensive preventive health services, increase HIV/AIDS screening of pregnant and lying-in women to 80 percent and syphilis screening to 70 percent, and raise the application rate of intervention measures to pregnant and lying-in women infected with HIV/AIDS or syphilis, as well as their new-born babies, to above 90 percent.

      (7) Improve women's nutrition level. Promote education on and dissemination of health and nutrition knowledge, and advocate scientific and appropriate dietary schemes and regimens. Provide nutrition guidance and intervention to target social groups including pre-natal, pregnant and lying-in, and breast-feeding women according to their specific needs. Prevent and treat anemia among pregnant and lying-in women. Step up supervision on production and distribution of nutrition-enhanced food.

      (8) Ensure women's access to quality family planning services. Conduct research and popularize safe, effective and appropriate new contraception and birth-control technologies and methods, advocate informed choices on forms of contraception and birth control, and provide quality contraceptive and birth-control services. Improve dissemination of contraceptive and birth-control knowledge, raise women's self-protection awareness and improve their ability to choose scientific and rational contraceptive methods, and prevent and control unwanted pregnancies and induced abortions. Strengthen men and women's awareness of their common responsibilities with regard to contraception and birth control, research and develop male contraceptives and birth-control products, and encourage men's adoption of birth-control measures to increase the proportion of male contraception.

      (9) Improve women's mental health services. Establish a fully-functioning mental illness prevention-treatment-recovery service network covering both urban and rural areas. Provide counseling and services based on women's physiological and psychological traits. Improve mental health training for workers at professional mental health institutions as well as medical and health care institutions. Develop prevention, early discovery and intervention in women's post-natal depression.

      (10) Improve health care services among migrant women. Improve the administrative mechanism and security system among migrant women, and ensure that migrant women have access to the same level of health care services as local women residents. Step up the dissemination of health care knowledge among migrant women.

      (11) Guide and encourage women's regular participation in physical exercises. Strengthen scientific guidance on women's fitness activities, and raise their fitness awareness. Proactively develop urban and rural community fitness activities, and encourage women to participate in the nationwide fitness drive. Strengthen guidance and services on fitness activities among elderly women and women with disabilities.
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      Education of WomenEducation of Women

      (1) Ensure comprehensive implementation of the gender equality principle in education work.

      (2) Work to ensure that the gross enrollment rate of children in kindergartens rises to 70 percent, and that girls enjoy equal access to three-year preschool education.

      (3) Increase to 95 percent the retention rate of children in nine-year compulsory education, ensure that girls enjoy equal access to nine-year compulsory education, and eliminate the phenomenon of girls dropping out of school.

      (4) Work towards ensuring that the gross enrollment rate of children in senior high school education rises to 90 percent, and that girls enjoy equal access to senior high school education.

      (5) Work towards ensuring that the gross enrollment rate of children in higher education rises to 40 percent and that girls enjoy equal access to higher education, and strive to achieve a balanced gender ratio in higher education institutions.

      (6) Step up the popularization of women's studies courses in higher education institutions.

      (7) Expand the proportion of women in vocational school education and vocational training.

      (8) Ensure that women receive an average 11.2 years of education before working age.

      (9) Reduce the illiteracy rate of young and middle-aged women to less than 2 percent.

      (10) Ensure that the gender equality principle and concept are fully reflected in the standards and teaching processes of education courses of all categories and levels.

      Strategies and Measures:

      (1) Include gender perspective and carry out the gender equality principle in the formulation, revision, implementation and evaluation of educational laws, regulations, policies and programs.

      (2) Ensure girls' equal access to preschool education. Provide financial support to ensure that impoverished girls and girls with disabilities receive universal preschool education. Enhance the popularization of preschool education in rural areas, expand rural preschool education resources in various ways, and make efforts to ensure that "left-behind girls" (girls whose parents have moved to other regions of China to work) have access to kindergartens.

      (3) Ensure that school-age girls have equal access to compulsory education. Expand the dissemination of the Education Law of the People's Republic of China, the Law of the People's Republic of China on Compulsory Education, and other laws and regulations, raise parents' legal awareness and promote their consciousness of the need to secure girls' right to compulsory education.

      (4) Ensure girls' equal access to high school education. Boost support for high school education in impoverished areas in central and western China, and ensure that the demand of girls in rural and poverty-stricken areas for high school education is met. Provide financial support to impoverished girls and girls with disabilities in high school education, and ensure that girls do not drop out of school because of poverty and/or physical disabilities. Progressively provide free secondary vocational education and ensure that girls who fail to go on to senior high school receive the necessary vocational education before seeking employment.

      (5) Improve women's access to higher education. Take proactive measures to protect women's equal access to higher education, and increase the proportion of women with higher education among the working-age population. Provide financial support to impoverished and/or disabled women college students in various forms and through multiple channels.

      (6) Satisfy women's vocational education needs. Ensure equal emphasis on the importance of vocational school education and vocational training, and provide women with more opportunities and resources for vocational education. Support women in remote poverty-stricken areas and women with disabilities seeking vocational education. Provide compensatory education for overage girl dropouts, and expand their vocational training opportunities. Organize various forms of vocational training for unemployed women, and improve their ability to start their own businesses or to become re-employed. Offer vocational education majors applicable to the physiological and psychological characteristics of women with disabilities.

      (7) Enhance life-long education for women. Construct an open and flexible life-long educational system that provides women with diversified, life-long education opportunities and resources. Encourage women to take up various forms of continuing education, and support employing units in providing such education opportunities for their women employees. Improve women's ability to use new media for access to modern distance education.

      (8) Promote women's participation in community education. Integrate and optimize community education resources, develop diversified community education modes, enrich community education contents, and satisfy women's individualized study and development needs. Strengthen the development of community education for senior citizens, and provide convenient and flexible learning conditions for female senior citizens.

      (9) Step up literacy programs for women. Innovate and improve the operating mechanism for literacy, formulate favorable policies, and reinforce work to provide literacy programs for young and middle-aged illiterate women. After eliminating illiteracy, consolidate the achievements of literacy programs, and carry out in-depth literacy drive and post-drive continuing education through organizing compensatory study.

      (10) Improve training for female technological and technical talents. Improve policies for talents in the field of science and technology, and explore the establishment of a multi-layered, multi-channel training system for female sci-tech talents. Gather and train female professional talents by utilizing on State key laboratories, key scientific research projects, and key engineering and construction projects.

      (11) Improve women's theoretical research in gender thoeries and the building of women's studies in higher education institutions. Include projects and subjects on gender and women's development in State social science funds and other related funds to promote theoretical women's studies. Expand the discipline ranking of women's studies, and encourage higher education institutions to offer a major or a course on women's studies with a view to cultivating women's studies professionals.

      (12) Implement gender evaluation of education contents and process. Include gender experts in the staff of institutions providing guidance on school courses and textbooks. Fully reflect the gender concept in education contents and modes, and guide students to foster gender equality ideas.

      (13) Improve gender awareness among education workers. Step up training among education administrators on gender theories, include gender equality content in teacher training programs and courses in normal colleges, and strengthen gender awareness among education administrators. Increase the percentage of women among decision-makers and administrators in schools of all levels and categories, and in education administration departments.

      (14) Balance the gender structure of students in areas of study in secondary and higher education. Encourage students' comprehensive development, and reduce the influence of gender on students' choices of majors. Adopt diversified means to encourage more women to participate in high-tech study and research.
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      Women and the EconomyWomen and the Economy

      (1) Ensure women's equal right to work, and eliminate gender discrimination in employment.

      (2) Ensure that women account for more than 40 percent of employees, and that the number of urban female workers progressively expands.

      (3) Reduce the gap in employment rate and the income gap between men and women in non-agricultural sectors.

      (4) Raise the proportion of women among skilled laborers.

      (5) Guarantee that the proportion of women among high-level professional and technical personnel reaches 35 percent.

      (6) Ensure female workers' safety at work, and reduce the incidence rate of occupational disease among women workers.

      (7) Ensure rural women's equal access and right to contracted land management.

      (8) Significantly reduce women's poverty level.

      Strategies and Measures:

      (1) Strengthen legal protection of women's economic rights. Enact and improve regulations and policies that guarantee women's equal participation in economic development and their equal labor rights. Ensure women's equal access to economic resources and effective services. Strictly implement employment-promotion and labor contract laws and regulations.

      (2) Eliminate gender discrimination in employment. Other than in jobs and posts proscribed by law as unsuitable for women, no unit must refuse to employ women or raise the recruitment standards for women job applicants for gender reason or spuriously for gender reason; and no unit must, in labor contract or other forms, constrain women from marriage and childbearing. Intensify supervision over the enforcement of the labor protection laws, and investigate and deal with, according to law, acts of gender discrimination on the part of the employing units and employment agencies.

      (3) Expand women's employment channels. Proactively develop tertiary industry with a view to creating new job opportunities and posts for women. Make continuous efforts to improve the abilities of small and medium-sized enterprises and non-public enterprises to absorb female workers, and adopt effective measures to promote women's employment in pioneer industries and emerging trades. Formulate and bring into effect employment policies favorable to women who experience difficulties in finding employment and provide more help for them in this respect. Improve policies that support women starting their own businesses, and support and help women starting their own undertakings through such measures as skills training, taxes and fees reduction or exemption, subsidized loans, and follow-up guidance.

      (4) Promote full employment of female university graduates. Strengthen employment guidance, training and services oriented to female university students and help them make the right decisions for future occupations. Improve policies supporting female university students starting their own businesses, and offer training to help them to that end.

      (5) Create favorable employment conditions for women experiencing difficulties in finding jobs. Bring into effect policies on public welfare jobs and help such groups as women at disadvantageous age and with disabilities. Conscientiously implement relevant legal provisions on women returning to their original posts after giving birth. Carry out, such supporting provisions and policies as social insurance subsidies, training subsidies and subsidized micro-finance to help laid-off women start their own businesses or become reemployed.

      (6) Improve women's employment structure. Accelerate the process of integrating urban and rural areas, and explore various channels to guid and support rural women make an orderly shift to non-agricultural industries. Improve State policies on training, evaluating and stimulating skilled talents. Strengthen the training of women's vocational skills, and raise the proportion of women among primary, medium, and high-level skilled workers. Guide women to actively participation in scientific research and technological development, and create favorable conditions for them to improve their qualifications.

      (7) Fully implement the policy of equal pay for equal work for men and women. Establish a sound, scientific and rational income distribution system. Ensure that employing units offer equal remuneration to workers doing the same work, making the same amount of effort and achieving the same results.

      (8) Guarantee female workers' occupational health and safety. Spread education on occupational diseases prevention and control and raise female workers' self-protection awareness, especially those without fixed employment. Strengthen administration and supervision over the hazards of occupational diseases. Include special labor protection for female workers as an important part of labor protection and labor security supervision. Strengthen labor protection for female workers, forbid employing units to assign female workers to tasks prohibitive to them, and reduce the incidence of occupational diseases among female workers.

      (9) Safeguard female workers' labor rights and interests. Make continuous efforts to improve laws and regulations on female workers' labor protection and raise female workers, self-protection awareness through education and training in laws and regulations and knowledge on labor safety and health. Regulate enterprise recruitment behavior, make the signing of labor contracts between enterprises and their employees standard practice, and encourage enterprises with trade unions to sign and fulfill special collective contracts on protecting female workers' rights and interests. Deal with violations of female workers' rights and interests according to law.

      (10) Ensure rural women's land rights and interests. Carry out and improve relevant policies on protection of rural women's land rights and interests, and rectify village regulations or villagers' private agreements that violate the provisions of relevant laws and regulations. Set up and improve various rules and regulations on management of rural collective funds, assets, and resources, and push local authorities to work out measures on the distribution and use of land acquisition compensation within rural collective economic organizations, and ensure rural women enjoy gender-equal rights with respect to contracted management of land, use of housing sites and distribution of collective income.

      (11) Raise rural women's income. Promote the development of agricultural production mutual-aid and cooperation organizations, expand agricultural production scales and improve operating incomes. Ensure rural women enjoy all government-stipulated agricultural subsidies. Create suitable posts for rural women while centering on the development of rural secondary and tertiary industries, such as primary processing of farm products at their site of production, and rural recreational and tourist activities. Offer training courses on practical and professional skills that are easily accessible to rural women to help both "left-behind women" (women whose husbands have moved to other regions of China to work) and women returning to their hometowns to start their own businesses or find other employment. Encourage financial institutions, enterprises and other organizations to offer, in cooperation with women's organizations, rural women-oriented financial services and relevant training.

      (12) Step up support for poverty-stricken women. Develop anti-poverty measures to help impoverished women, and guarantee sufficient supply of living resources. Support poverty-stricken women in taking part in anti-poverty projects in rural areas. Offer subsidized micro-finance and capital and other preferential projects specially to urban and rural poverty-stricken women.
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      Women in Decision Making and ManagementWomen in Decision Making and Management

      (1) Urge the departments concerned to progressively raise the proportion of women among deputies to people's congresses and committee members of the People's Political Consultative Conference (PPCC) at all levels, and also among members of the standing committees of people's congresses and of the standing committees of the PPCC committees at all levels.

      (2) Ensure that there is at least one woman in every local government body above the county level, and gradually increase the percentage of women.

      (3) Ensure a progressive increase of women leaders in the ministries and commissions under the State Council and government departments at the provincial and prefectural levels.

      (4) Progressively increase the percentage of women among cadres holding principal posts in local government bodies above the county level.

      (5) Progressively increase the percentage of women among enterprise supervisors, board directors and managers.

      (6) Progressively increase the percentage of women deputies to workers' congresses and to congresses of school faculties.

      (7) Ensure that more than 30 percent of villagers' committee members and more than 10 percent of villagers' committee directors are women.

      (8) Ensure that women account for about 50 percent of residents' committee members.

      Strategies and Measures:

      (1) Enact and improve laws, regulations and policies relative to promoting women's participation in decision-making and management. Urge the departments concerned to take measures to raise the proportion of women or women candidates among people's congress deputies, PPCC committee members, and members of villagers' committees and residents' committees.

      (2) Create a sound social environment for women's participation in decision-making and management. Use various forms of publicity to raise the gender equality awareness among the general public and enhance their awareness of the important role that women play in promoting democracy and the rule by law, and in the harmonious development of men and women.

      (3) Raise women's awareness of and their ability in participating in decision-making and management. Organize publicity and training programs to help women raise such awareness and ability, and encourage and guide their active participation in decision-making and management. Ensure women cadres' training opportunities and strengthen training of grassroots cadres to improve their political and cultural qualities as well as their decision-making and management capabilities.

      (4) Improve personnel and civil servant management systems. Uphold the principle of "democracy, openness, competition and selecting the best" in the selection, appointment and promotion of cadres, and ensure that there is no discrimination against women. Strengthen supervision of the recruitment, training, appraisal, commendation, exchange and promotion of civil servants to ensure women's equal rights are being upheld.

      (5) Strengthen the training and selection of cadres from among women. Implement requirements in relevant regulations and policies on the training, selection and posting of women cadres. Provide opportunities, through training or exchange, for a certain proportion of women cadres to take up head posts and positions at key departments. Pay attention to the selection of women cadres from grassroots departments and production frontlines. Steadily increase the proportion of women in reserve cadre teams.

      (6) Encourage women's participation in enterprise operation and management. Deepen reform of the enterprise personnel system and uphold the selection and appointment principle of "openness, transparency, and selecting the best" to enable more women to become supervisors, board directors or managers through recommendation, public recruitment, democratic election and competition.

      (7) Promote women's wide participation in grassroots democratic management. Improve the democratic election system of villagers' committees and residents' committees to create favorable conditions for women's participation in grassroots democratic management. Improve the democratic management system of enterprises or public institutions — primarily workers' congresses — so as to ensure that the percentage of women in a workers' congress is proportionate to that in the total work force.

      (8) Broaden channels through which women can take part in decision-making and management. Solicit opinions and suggestions from women deputies to people's congresses at all levels, women members of PPCC committees at all levels, and from among female rank-and-filers while formulating important policies concerning public interests and women's rights and interests. Carry out a wide spectrum of activities to encourage women's participation in and discussion of State affairs and to create opportunities for women to participate in decision-making and management.

      (9) Promote the influence of women's federations in decision-making and management. Bring into full play the role of women's federations in representing the masses of women, with respect to participation in democratic decision-making, management and supervision of national and social affairs. Invite women's federations to participate in the formulating of women-related regulations and important public policies and pass along the opinions and demands of the masses of women. Accord importance to the opinions and suggestions of women's federations on the training and recommendation of female cadres and talents, and on women's participation in and discussions of State affairs.
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      Women and the Social SecurityWomen and the Social Security

      (1) Improve the urban and rural maternity security systems to ensure that maternity insurance is available in all employing units, and to raise women's level of security at childbirth.

      (2) Guarantee the basic medical insurance system coverage of women in both urban and rural areas and steadily promote the level of medical security.

      (3) Progressively expand pension coverage of senior women. Continue to expand the old-age insurance coverage of individual urban business people and women without fixed employment, and significantly increase the proportion of women participating in the new social old-age insurance for rural residents.

      (4) Increase the number of women participating in unemployment insurance and gradually improve their level of unemployment insurance benefits.

      (5) Ensure that work-related injury insurance is available to all female employees who have established labor relations with employing units.

      (6) Improve the standards of care services for senior women and expand to more than 90 percent coverage of community-based old-age care services in both urban and rural areas.

      Strategies and Measures:

      (1) Strengthen construction of a legal system of women's social security. Implement the Social Security Law of the People's Republic of China and enact supportive regulations to provide legal security for women to ensure that they enjoy maternity insurance, medical insurance, old-age insurance, unemployment insurance and work-related injury insurance.

      (2) Improve the maternity insurance system. Improve the maternity insurance system for urban workers, expand the coverage of maternity insurance and raise the participation rate. Based on the basic medical insurance of urban residents, and the new rural cooperative medical care system, improve the maternity insurance system in both urban and rural areas to make it cover all the urban and rural women.

      (3) Ensure basic medical security for both urban and rural women. Steadily improve the security level by expanding the coverage of basic medical insurance for urban workers, basic medical insurance for urban residents, and the new rural cooperative medical care system.

      (4) Improve the urban and rural old-age insurance system. Improve the old-age insurance system for urban workers, promote establishment of the old-age insurance system for urban residents and advance the new social old-age insurance for rural residents.

      (5) Further improve the unemployment insurance system. Expand unemployment insurance coverage to safeguard unemployed women's legitimate unemployment insurance rights and interests.

      (6) Protect women workers' legal rights and interests based on work-related injury insurance. Expand the coverage of work-related injury insurance and strengthen law enforcement to ensure implementation of workers' compensation.

      a. improve the social assistance system in urban and rural areas. Establish an assistance standard adjustment mechanism commensurate with the economic growth and general price levels, so as to determine a rational assistance standard, and ensure assistance for women who meet that standard.

      b. Mobilize all social forces in providing social assistance. Support and standardize social organizations' and citizens' assistance programs. Encourage social organizations to launch charity activities and mobilize social resources by all means to help needy women.

      c. Ensure basic old-age care services for elderly women. Establish and improve the social old-age care service system through increased financial input. Develop non-profit nursing homes in communities, promote the professionalism of nursing staff, and raise the level of community-based old-age care services.

      d. Ensure social security for women with disabilities. Allocate subsidies to severely disabled women and impoverished women with disabilities to enable them to pay premiums on social insurances including the new rural cooperative medical care system, urban residents' basic medical insurance, and the new social old-age insurance for rural residents. Guarantee the basic livelihood of poverty-stricken disabled women through multiple channels. Increas and improve welfare institutions and rehabilitation service centers for people with disabilities, and build comprehensive service facilities for the disabled in cities and counties. Promote community-based rehabilitation services for disabled women.
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      Women and the EnvironmentWomen and the Environment

      (1) Further implement the basic State policy of equality between men and women, and build a gender-equal and harmonious environment within the family and in the society.

      (2) Ensure that the principle of gender equality is embodied in policies on the environment and development, culture and media, and social administration and family.

      (3) Improve the gender-equality supervision and administration mechanism in the media field.

      (4) Unfold community-based education and consultation activities themed on marriage and family to establish equal, civilized, harmonious and stable family relations.

      (5) Encourage and guide women to be promoters of harmonious families.

      (6) Provide home-based care services for children and the elderly to create conditions to make it easier for women to balance their career and family duties.

      (7) Comprehensively solve the problem of safe drinking water in rural areas, and reduce harm to women's health from polluted water. Increase to about 85 percent the proportion of rural people benefiting from centralized water supply.

      (8) Increase the percentage of sanitary toilets to 85 percent in rural areas, and ensure a rational man-woman ratio of public toilet stalls in urban areas.

      (1) Encourage women to be active in energy-saving and emission-reduction drives and to lead a low-carbon life.

      (2) Enhance women's capabilities to prevent and deal with disaster risks, and meet their special needs in disaster reduction.

      Strategies and Measures:

      (1) Step up theoretical research and advocacy on the basic State policy of equality between men and women. Integrate gender equality policy research with the research on socialism with Chinese characteristics to enrich the policy's theoretical foundation. Encourage education on the gender-equality policy in Party schools and administration colleges' teaching plans and in training plans for officials at all levels. Publicize the gender-equality policy through various channels and in various forms in communities and families and promote the policy's social influence.

      (2) Formulate and implement gender-sensitive cultural and media policies. Make analyses and evaluations of cultural and media policies from a gender perspective to reflect the policies' different influences on men and women. Formulate cultural and media policies that promote harmonious development of men and women and prohibit gender discrimination.

      (3) Make more efforts to publicize women's active role in promoting economic and social development. Use all media, including the press, radio, television and film, and also literature and the arts, to demonstrate women's achievements, value and contributions through their participation in and promotion of economic and social development, laying emphasis on women role models, in efforts to inspire among women the spirit of self-esteem, self-confidence, self-reliance and self-strengthening.

      (4) Step up positive media guidance and management. Integrate gender awareness into media training programs to ensure that media employees, decision-makers and managers are more gender-sensitive. Improve the media supervision and management mechanism, add gender-awareness supervision contents, and invite gender experts to monitor media activities. Call on the press and advertisers to exert strict self-discipline. Prohibit gender discrimination manifested in media depreciation and denial of women's personal dignity.

      (5) Enhance women's ability to acquire knowledge and information through the media. Create conditions and opportunities for women to gain access to the mass media and to learn to use them. Promote media and communication technologies among needy and disabled women, migrant women workers and those in remote rural areas. Encourage civil society and enterprises to help women in remote areas obtain information and services through information and communication technologies.

      (6) Create an equal and harmonious family environment. Advocate, through various publicity and education activities, family virtues, including respect for the elderly and care for the young, equality between men and women, harmony between husband and wife, thrifty household management, and good neighborhood relationships. Establish an advanced gender culture and advocate civilized, healthy and scientific lifestyles and equal sharing family responsibilities between men and women.

      (7) Invite women to participate in practical family education guidance and publicity activities. Disseminate family education knowledge through various channels and in various forms, and encourage parents to accept family education guidance services and related activities. Encourage women to participate in family education research and promote education results.

      (8) Further carry out family education guidance service and publicity activities. Bring into full play the role of traditional and modern media in popularizing family education knowledge to help parents foster scientific education concepts and grasp scientific methods.

      (9) Promote the community public service system. Provide family-oriented public services to help husbands and wives better fulfill work and family duties. Develop public nursery services for families with infants and community services for children in both urban and rural areas. Raise the socialized level of household work.

      (10) Reduce the harm to women from environmental pollution. Improve the databases for monitoring the environment and health, analyze and evaluate from a gender perspective pollution from drinking water, indoor air, also industrial residues and living environment. Intensify control and management of environmental pollution to reduce its hazards to the environment. Intensify the levels of domestic garbage reduction, utilization and decontamination. Further develop and use clean energy, and improve the energy structure in households. Strengthen protection of women engaged in toxic and potentially harmful work.

      (11) Mobilize women to take an active part in ecological development and environmental protection. Carry out, in various forms, multi-level ecological and environmental protection publicity activities to raise women's awareness of ecological civilization and increase their participation in ecological development and environmental protection. Encourage women to participate in the energy-saving and emission-reduction efforts, and to promote green consumption by practicing a low-carbon lifestyle.

      (12) Establish and improve a drinking water security system in rural areas. Continue to push forward the construction of water safety projects and centralized water supply projects in rural areas. Strengthen the operation and management of water safety projects in rural areas through designated managerial bodies, intensify water source protection and water quality monitoring, and ensure the projects' long-term effects.

      (13) Expand the popularization of sanitary toilets in rural areas. Publicize among rural residents the importance of such practice. encourage local farmers to build their own sanitary. toilets and provide them with more technical guidance and services. Introduce toilet reform into the program for building a new countryside and include reform results into annual appraisals of government work.

      (14) Ensure a rational man-woman ratio of public toilet stalls in urban areas. Carry out research from a gender perspective on men-women demands and utilization rate of public toilets when making plans of stadiums and shopping malls, and take into account women's physiological features when determining public toilet stalls.

      (15) Reflect gender awareness in disaster-reduction work. Provide necessary assistance and services to women based on their special needs. Improve women's competence in preventing and dealing with disasters through publicity and training, and include women's participation in related work. Strengthen guidance to women in disaster-hit areas on self-help by engaging them in production and employment.

      (16) Promote international exchange and cooperation for advancing women's development. Actively implement the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and other international instruments. Expand multilateral and bilateral exchanges and cooperation. Publicize China's achievements in advancing women's development, and promote Chinese women's influence in international affairs.
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      Women and the LawWomen and the Law

      (1) Continue to improve laws and regulations on gender equality.

      (2) Strengthen gender-equality review of the laws, regulations and policies.

      (3) Constantly promote women's awareness and capabilities of safeguarding their own rights and interests in accordance with the law.

      (4) Crack down on rape, abduction and sale of women, and organizing, forcing, enticing, accommodating and introducing women to engage in prostitution and other criminal offenses that infringe upon women's personal rights.

      (5) Prevent and curb domestic violence against women.

      (6) Protect women's property rights and interests in marriage and family relationships.

      (7) Guarantee women's access to legal and judicial assistance according to law.

      Strategies and Measures:

      (1) Continue to improve legislation on the protection of women's rights and interests. In view of the acute problems involved in protecting women's rights and interests, formulate and improve relevant laws and regulations to protect women's rights in the spheres of politics, culture and education, person, property, work, social security, marriage and family.

      (2) Promote inspection of the contents in regulations and policies that violate the principle of gender equality. Implement Legislative Law stipulations with respect to the filing and inspection systems and procedures of relevant regulations and policies; strengthen, in accordance with the law, the filing and inspection of regulations and policies that violate gender equality, and correct any articles and contents that violate the gender-equality principle in the current regulations and policies.

      (3) Guarantee women's orderly participation in legislation. Guide and encourage women to participate in legislative activities through various channels to voice their opinions and suggestions. Expand channels through which women's federations and other women's organizations can participate in legislation and express opinions and suggestions on a wider scale.

      (4) Support and cooperate with people's congresses at all levels on monitoring the implementation of laws and regulations relative to women's rights and interests protection, better understand problems arising in the course of their implementation and offer opinions and suggestions for their solution.

      (5) Give extensive and thorough publicity to laws and regulations on the protection of women's rights and interests. Strengthen legal popularization, incorporate the dissemination of laws and regulations and legal education on the protection of women's rights and interests into the nationwide legal popularization program, and promote the dissemination of these laws and regulations in urban and rural communities. Carry out law popularization activities through various channels and in various forms targeted especially at women.

      (6) Strengthen training on gender theory. Integrate such theory into regular legislative, judicial and law-enforcement departments training courses to raise gender awareness of the personnel of those departments.

      (7) Increase women's influence on jurisdiction and law enforcement. Encourage and recommend qualified women candidates to work as people's jurors. Encourage and recommend women with professional backgrounds as special procurators or people's supervisors at people's procuratorates.

      (8) Crack down on the criminal offenses of organizing, forcing, enticing, accommodating and introducing women to engage in prostitution. Strengthen rectifying measures, intensify supervision and control, thoroughly investigate and close down places of entertainment that provide pornographic services, and stringently punish perpetrators in accordance with the law. Strengthen comprehensive public order management and encourage people to monitor and report pornographic activities that constitute law violations or criminal offenses.

      (9) Strengthen efforts against abduction of and trafficking in women. Adhere to the principle of putting prevention first and combining prevention and control, and heighten the general public's anti-abduction awareness and women's awareness of precaution. Strengthen comprehensive control and intensify efforts to crack down on the abduction and sale of women. Give more help to rescued women to recover physically and mentally and return to society.

      (10) Prevent and curb domestic violence against women. Promote legislation on preventing and curbing domestic violence. Step up publicity and education to raise awareness of the whole society of the need and ability to resist domestic violence, and promote the self-protection ability of women victims of domestic violence. Improve the multi-sectoral cooperation mechanism on preventing and curbing domestic violence, and also the working mechanism that integrates prevention, curbing and rescue.

      (11) Effectively prevent and curb sexual harassment of women. Establish and improve the legislature and working mechanism on sexual harassment prevention and containment, and strengthen efforts to combat sexual harassment. Employing units should adopt effective measures to prevent sexual harassment in work places.

      (12) Safeguard women's property rights and interests within marriage and family relationships. Reflect the principle of gender equality in accordance with relevant laws and regulations when trying cases involving marriage, family and inheritance. When divorce cases come to court, while offering wives just compensation, take into consideration the labor they devote to taking care of their families, their survival and development needs after divorce, and their needs with respect to rearing minor children.

      (13) Protect rural women's lawful rights and interests within the villagers' self-governance mechanism. Implement the Organic Law of the Villagers' Committees of the People's Republic of China, and guarantee that women exercise their legal rights in democratic election, decision-making, management and supervision. Governments at township (town) level should make timely corrections should they find provisions contradicting those contained in the State Constitution, laws, regulations or policies, or contents involving discrimination against women or harm to women's lawful rights and interests in villagers' self-governance regulations, village rules or villagers' private agreements submitted to them for the record.

      (14) Timely take on cases involving violations of women's rights and interests. Adopt necessary measures, in accordance with relevant legal provisions, during litigation of cases involving women's individual privacy, in order to protect them from being hurt a second time.

      (15) Provide women with legal aid according to law. Raise the general public's awareness of legal aid, and encourage and give help to eligible women to apply for legal aid. Expand legal aid coverage and improve the legal aid network. Encourage and support legal aid service institutions, social organizations and public institutions in providing non-profit legal services and aid.

      (16) Provide women with judicial assistance according to law. Provide judicial assistance to women in financial difficulties or women who need help due to other special conditions, and defer, cut or exempt their litigation fees. Establish a sound system of assistance for victims in criminal cases and provide State aid to women victims living in straitened circumstances sufficient to guarantee their basic livelihood.
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