Gender Mainstreaming: Effective Means to Promote Women's Advancement and Gender Equality

Twenty years ago, many countries were deemed to have "insufficient mechanisms at all levels to promote the advancement of women." This issue was listed as one of the 12 critical areas of concern in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which was passed during the Fourth World Conference on Women in September 1995. Gender mainstreaming has since come to be viewed as a global strategy to promote gender equality. China, along with all the participants at the Conference, opens its arms to include social gender mainstreaming into all its sectors of social development.

Twenty years later, China has achieved great progress in reducing gender prejudices, narrowing the gender gap, realizing gender equality and delivering justice. As a relatively new concept, gender mainstreaming has now been recognized as an effective and successful means to promote the advancement of women and gender equality. China, as the host nation of the Conference, was one of the earliest out the 46 countries present to be committed to the concept of gender mainstreaming.

Gender mainstreaming capacity has been increased dramatically in the past two decades in China. Progress has been made in mechanism building for gender equality advancement since the establishment of the National Working Committee on Children and Women under the State Council in 1990 which has been chaired successively by leadership from the State Council, and the sub-committees at provincial and lower levels have also been set up accordingly in 31 provinces across the whole country. Some local governments even try to explore ways to crosscut gender awareness into legislation and policy-making; at a result, the Gender-Equality-based Policies and Regulations Review Committee has been set up in four provinces so far.

Gender Equality Further Incorporated in Mainstream Legislation

As of the end of 2013, 31 provincial-level jurisdictions launched the Implementation Measures on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women and Interests, and 29 provincial-level jurisdictions launched local regulations on preventing and combating domestic violence. The Electoral Law of the National People's Congress and Local People's Congresses and the Villagers' Committee Organization Law both revised in 2010 provide for the number and proportion of women in political decision-making.

In 2013, the Standing Committee of 12th NPC included the development of the Domestic Violence Law in its five-year legislative plan. In the Regulations Concerning the Labor Protection of Female Employees approved by the State Council in 2012 and the confirmation, registration and certification of rural land contract and management rights in 2014, urban female employees and rural women respectively got their deserved labor protection and land rights guarantee.

Some local governments have begun to incorporate gender equality awareness into mechanisms for legal policy setting. For example, in March 2012, Jiangsu Province took the lead in establishing a Jiangsu Provincial Advisory and Evaluation Committee on Gender Equality in Policies and Regulations, which put forward relevant suggestions and recommendations for 18 local provisions successively from a gender perspective. Also in 2014, Gansu Province proposed to create an expert group on gender equality under the legislative body and establish a mechanism to assess gender equality in policies and regulations.

New Progress Made in Gender Equality Assurance

National mechanisms for the advancement of women's status have been constantly improved, serving as the organizational guarantee on gender equality. The NWCCW was established in 1990, always chaired by a member from the State Council. The current chairperson is Ms. Liu Yandong.

Since 2010, enforcement inspection and survey has been carried out on the Law on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women and Interests and several other relevant laws. The CPPCC Committee for Social and Legal Affairs set up a task force on women and children, while Women's Federation is one of the 34 CPPCC constituencies, which, through valuable suggestions for addressing the key and difficult issues in the development of women and active processing of proposals facilitating gender equality and women's endeavor, has played an important role in voicing women's needs and safeguarding their legitimate rights and interests. The has been driving and coordinating economic development, family enhancement and rights protection, and has functioned in legislation and enforcement to some extent through a series of working systems such as drafting the National Program for the Development of Chinese Women, executing the enforcement inspection, reporting the related progress, writing up evaluation reports, etc.

In the development and implementation of the national action plans, the Report to the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China 2012 claims to insist on the basic State policy of gender equality and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of women and children, with gender equality written into CPC's policy agenda for the first time, reflecting the political commitment of the Chinese ruling party to translating gender equality into the mainstream values.

The Outline of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (2011-2015) also sets forth a dedicated section describing the plan for women's development in an all-round way. The National Program for the Development of Chinese Women (2011-2020) has also been developed by the government.

Research institutions and selection mechanisms for gender equality have grown in an innovative manner, providing theoretical support and social context for gender equality. Since 2012, the mainstream media across China have nominated the top ten news events on gender equality annually to promote gender awareness through mass media, triggering social attention to gender equality topics.

Capacity Building Enhanced in Relation to Gender Mainstreaming

Mechanisms have been furthered to improve gender-based statistics, which has been gradually incorporated into the conventional statistical survey system of the State. In 2012, the NBSC revised the comprehensive statistical system for assessing the situation of women and children, comprising an updated system of statistical indicators that can better reflect the situation of women and children.

In 2010, the ACWF and the NBS jointly implemented the third session of Chinese women's social status survey, collecting gender-disaggregated statistical data on various domains and groups. In the same year, the NBS launched the sixth national census, which contained gender-disaggregated population data.

Gender budgeting mechanisms have been explored. A number of local governments have set a fiscal investment standard for women's cause funding at one yuan per person, with the working funds of women's federation included into the budget. In 2014, Chongqing achieved a breakthrough in this regard by doubling the special funding standard.

Challenges Ahead

However, China is still challenged significantly in terms of gender mainstreaming in legislation and policy-making, institutional arrangements for women's status improvement, studies on GE mainstreaming strategies and tactics. Therefore, we recommend mainstreaming GE perspective into China's legislation and policy-making, strengthening institutional arrangements, and intensifying studies on GE mainstreaming strategies and tactics.

 Data Speaks

* Member units of the NWCCW have grown from 19 at the beginning to the current 35 departments, each headed by a deputy minister. At present, governments of 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities), prefectures (leagues) and counties (districts) have set up the relevant institutions.

* 17 provincial-level jurisdictions have established a total of 32 women/gender studies and training bases.

(Women of China)