A motion is expected to be made by the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) during this year's session of the National People's Congress (NPC), which is due in early March, for a law on the medical insurance coverage of all the pregnant women.

The motion suggests that insurance coverage should be provided for pregnant women and it should be clearly stipulated in the Social Insurance Law, which is now being drafted by the NPC.

Providing insurance for pregnant women "has also a bearing on the materialization of equality between the two sexes, the better allocation of labor resources in the market economy and the welfare of mothers and babies alike." said the motion.

Traditionally in China, it was up to the company who paid for the medical care of the pregnant women while maintaining her salary when she is on maternity leave. Whereas now it has not been followed as much as before due to high costs when the nation's enterprises started to fare on their own in the market economy.

The sources of the ACWF show that though gender discrimination is banned by the Chinese law, many firms are reluctant to hire women. And some of them even went to far to sign contracts with their female workers, prohibiting them from getting pregnant in their contract period.

The issue of providing quality medical care to pregnant women is more acute among the nation's hundreds of thousands of migrant women workers. Coming from rural regions and with limited education, most of them are not aware of importance of maternal health care. And the frequent move has added more difficulty for them to obtain consistent medical care during the pregnancy period.

A regulation in 1994 has enabled the setting of special funds of medical fees for the pregnant in more than 1,400 cities and counties nationwide. However, nearly half of the country's cities still need to work hard to accumulate the funds, according to ACWF 's figures.

The ACWF will make altogether three motions to the NPC this year, with another one to tackle the difficulty in guaranteeing women farmers' equal right to contracting land.