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http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/15031544-1.htm?=mail
China – Women’s Federation Calls for Better Protection of Rural
Women’s Rights
Editor: Arnold
Hou – March 12, 2015
Vice-President and Member of the Secretariat of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) Cui Yu has called on government and society to better protect the rights and interests of farmers, especially women, in China's rural areas.
Issues
concerning agriculture, the countryside and farming have an overall impact on
reform and development," said Cui at the 4th plenary session of the 3rd session of the 12th Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conference (CPPCC) held in Beijing on March 11.
"We should show more kindness to farmers, especially women who account
for more than 65 percent of labor force in China's rural areas,
because they are the major force behind China's agricultural production, as
well as the founders of our beautiful villages."
However, Cui said
that there are still several problems in the protection of rural women's rights
and interests. For example, it is difficult to implement rights in the case of
contracted farmland: some rural women are deprived of their membership of the
collective economy; they have no rural housing land; and those whose legal
rights and interests are violated are unable to receive effective subsidies.
To further
safeguard rural women's rights and interests and deepen rural reform and
development, Cui on behalf of the ACWF put forward several proposals.
The relevant
government departments should introduce legislation on the qualifications of
rural membership of the collective economy earlier, to safeguard rural women's
rights of contracted farmland and allocation of collective profit, suggests
Cui.
The civil affairs
departments should introduce legislation and take measures to investigate
current regulations in villages and offer guidance to grassroots departments in
rectifying and improving those measures which are lacking, especially with
regards to rural women's household registration, divorce, death of spouse, and
allocation of equity in land use.
The Supreme People's Court should
clarify the conditions whereby cases can be filed if there is a violation of
rural women's land use, and release judicial interpretation as well as publish
representative cases to strengthen sentencing guidelines about such cases.
For a long time,
women have suffered discrimination and unequal treatment in many areas over the
contractual rights of farmland in rural areas across the country. The
protection of their land rights is closely tied to the practice of gender
equality, social stability and economic development outside of China's cities.
China's Ministry
of Agriculture and the ACWF have jointly introduced many policies and
regulations to better protect rural women's key rights and interests related to
farmland in recent years. Women's federations and government departments have
also taken tangible measures to serve rural women's farmland rights.
So far, a total of 13 provinces and municipalities across the country have released policies to clearly specify women's rights in the administration of contracted rights to rural land, which has provided legal assistance in the fight against illegal infringement of land rights.