White paper sees improvement in women’s rights

China has set up special funds to reduce the number of illiterate women, it said, adding women’s average years of schooling have increased, and the gender gap has narrowed.

Women already account for about 40% of GDP in the U.S. and western Europe; but just 17% in India and 18% in the Middle East and north Africa, according to the analysis by the research arm of the McKinsey & Company management consultancy.

Mlambo-Ngcuka said she hoped that world leaders attending an upcoming summit on gender equality and women’s empowerment at United Nations headquarters on September 27 would come up with a universal message to address problems facing women and girls.

Women now enjoy greater opportunities in junior high school education and above, particularly further education, said the paper.

Chinese women make up one fifth of the world’s total female population.

Women of ethnic minority groups, girls in remote poverty-stricken areas and other female groups now enjoy equal access to educational resources.

“By propelling women’s development to correspond to the pace of our economical society, China’s gender equality policies show its effects”, speaks ACWF vice-president and first secretariat Song, Xiuyan.

While China has made modest gains with respect to women’s rights since 1995, it has not significantly reduced some of the most fundamental human rights abuses against women and girls, and in some respects has exacerbated them.

China has also improved the level of social security for women, including maternity, old-age, medical, unemployment and work-related injury insurance, according to the paper. As of 2010, China’s female life expectancy reaches 77.4, which demonstrates a 4.1 growth than year 2000.

On China’s initiative “to build a community of common destiny”, Mlambo-Ngcuka said all women and men want their rights to be respected, live in a world where they will be free of poverty and hunger and want to have a place in society.

Consisting approximately 11,000 characters and empirical statistics, the book entails China’s policies and measures upon gender equality issue, and reports their corresponding accomplishments explicitly.

More and more women can share family resources on an equal basis with men, and the concept of men and women sharing housework is now accepted.

“And of course the fact that…in China you also have women get into non-traditional jobs, science, technology” among others, she said. The gap for time spent on housework between men and women shortened from 150 minutes 10 years ago to 74 minutes now, according to the white paper.

China has also encouraged judicial action against domestic violence at the grassroots level. The state has enacted and improved laws and policies on vocational education, allocating more funds in this regard, improving student aid policies and increasing the number of women receiving vocational education.