China Helps Poverty-hit Women Better Off

The Chinese government has adopted a series of special economic policies to address the unique circumstances of women in poverty, says a latest report issued by the National Working Committee on Women and Children under the State Council.

By the end of 1999, 34 million Chinese, including women in rural areas, still faced shortages of food and clothing, the report says.

Poverty in China, especially as it affects women, is a complex, multidimensional problem, points out the report, which deals with the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which were formulated by the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women five years ago in the Chinese capital.

The report claims that the main causes of poverty for women are the income inequalities between women and men and the limited opportunities for women to earn a living.

Poverty cannot be eradicated by anti-poverty programs alone but requires full and equal involvement and economic development -- which China is doing now, says the report.

According to the report, local governments in China, in accordance with various local conditions, integrate women's poverty relief into their overall poverty-relief programs.

For instance, north China's Shanxi Province set up a gender- based poverty-relief program statistics system that gives priority to women. Under the system, poverty-relief projects that do not address the needs of women cannot be registered.

In order to help the poverty-stricken households, the Chinese government arranges special loans every year for their development, and provides small amounts of credit mainly to women in the rural areas. Financial institutions are encouraged to provide soft loans to poor women.

At the same time, China encourages women to find ways out of their circumstances. Various measures, such as "courtyard economy ", projects that give full play to women's advantages, export of labor force, special skills of minority nationalities, were adopted.

In addition, the government calls on non-governmental organizations to get involved in special programs for poor rural women.

In 1996, the All-China Women's Federation, the largest women's organization in China, started a "women eradicating poverty action " aiming to help at least one million poor women escape poverty by the end of 2000. With the help of the action, 580,000 women were free from poverty by 1998, and 23 million women in rural areas were trained with farming skills.

In 1994, the China Population Welfare Fund, China Family Planning Association and China Population Journal initiated the " Happiness Project" designed to assist poor mothers. The project has been launched in 27 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities and has input 95.87 million yuan (about 11.55 million U.S. dollars) to help 65,000 poverty-stricken mothers.

The report cites lack of information and poor education as the main obstacles facing women. The illiteracy rate among Chinese poverty-stricken women is as high as 70 percent currently.

The report suggests the government should increase funding for poverty relief, provide credit options and market access to women, accentuate human resources development for women in poverty- stricken areas, continue to include women's anti-poverty as part of the nation's anti-poverty program, and take gender into consideration when formulating poverty-relief plans.



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