China Improving?: A More Detailed Picture, Chinese Women on the Internet?
Source: The United Nations
un.org
DESPITE TREMENDOUS EFFORTS BY GOVERNMENT, CHINA STILL CONFRONTED BY REALITY OF EXTENSIVE FEMALE ILLITERACY, RURAL POVERTY AND RISING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
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China was not entirely free from the remnants of the feudal age, and despite tremendous efforts by the Government to protect women and promote their full participation in development, the country was confronting a sobering reality of extensive female illiteracy, rural poverty and an increased incidence of domestic violence, the Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations told the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women this morning, as it began the current phase of its consideration of China's compliance with the Women's Convention.
As one of the first State parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Chinese Government had always attached great importance to its implementation, Ambassador Qin Huasun told the 23-member expert body that monitors compliance with the Convention. Introducing his country's third and fourth periodic reports, he noted that more than a quarter of the world's women -- 600 million -- lived in China. Amid its deepening reform process, however, Chinese women had "a long way to go" towards realizing their full equality.
There was still a large gap in the education of urban and rural women, he said, and more than 100 million were still illiterate. In addition, large numbers of women workers -- laid off in the wake of economic reform -- were finding it very difficult to be re-employed, and the proportion of women in political life was still rather low. Moreover, the incidence of violence against them had increased, and certain social ills had still not been stamped out, despite the Government's repeated efforts to do so. Against those odds, China was determined to advance the status of its women, and it welcomed the support of the international community in that respect.
Members of the Chinese delegation -- which included government representatives from the legal and foreign affairs departments, as well as the National Working Committee on Women and Children and the State Family Planning
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