Equality, Development and Sharing: Progress of Women's Cause in 70 Years Since New China's Founding

Women and women's organizations are playing an increasingly prominent role in the developing of legal governance, as witnessed by the ever growing proportion of females participating in legislation decision procedures and the greater impact of women on building legal governance. The number of women engaged in decision-making in government institutions is also climbing. Currently, of the new civil servants recruited by central government organs and their direct affiliates, women account for more than a half, and this proportion is higher than 40% in local government organs. Women have become a very important force in the construction of China's legal governance. In particular, women working in judicial bodies have increased dramatically, constituting 32.6% of total court prosecutors in 2017, up 23.6 percentage points over 1982 shortly after China's reform and opening up drive was launched. Of all judges in 2017, 32.7% were female, 21.7 percentage points higher than the level in 1982. Women's federations perform their legal duties strictly. They participate in and supervise drafting and implementing laws and policies on behalf of the women by attending the Standing Committee and special committees of the National People's Congress, and by submitting motions, proposals and suggestions to the respective sessions of the NPC and the CPPCC. In the past five years, women's federations have been active in materialization, enactment, and revision of relevant laws and policies including Anti-domestic Violence Law of the People's Republic of China and measures in support of the Second Child Policy. They raised recommendations on more than 80 national laws and policies as well as over 3,000 local regulations and policies. There are also ongoing efforts made by these organizations in creation of a fair women employment interview mechanism and prevention and elimination of gender-based prejudice in employment. In addition, excellent cases of protection of women's legal rights are published regularly to help create a favorable atmosphere for the public to respect and care for women. A public legal education program titled "building a legal governance system in China-women are making their contributions" was launched to provide legal advice and services for women. The legal governance awareness among women has kept increasing. During solicitation of opinions on laws and regulations like General Provisions of Civil Law, there have been active responses from women. The ideas and suggestions they offered have contributed greatly to the construction of the legal governance system in China.