China protects human rights of all social groups

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China has strived to protect human rights of all social groups while honoring its National Human Rights Action Plan.

On Thursday, China's State Council Information Office (SCIO) published the Assessment Report on the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2009-2010), which says all targets and tasks set by the Action Plan have been fulfilled as scheduled.

In implementing the Action Plan, China has paid particular attention to social groups like underprivileged women, ethnic minority groups, migrant workers, the disabled, homeless children, among others, to protect the human rights of all social groups.

Over the past two years, China has earmarked 2.779 billion yuan (431 million USdollars) as a development fund for ethnic minority groups.

Dawa Tsering, a Tibetan herdsman in Damxung county of Lhasa, moved to a 70-square-meter brick-wood apartment last year. He said, "It's beyond my wildest imagination that I could have ever got such a nice apartment." Previously, his family, eight people in total, roughed it in a 30-square-meter mud house.

The renovation of his house was, for the most part, sponsored by the government.

Like his family, 46,000 households of Tibetan farmers and herdsmen moved to new houses in 2010.

Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, in carrying out the Action Plan, strived to raise the employment rate of ethnic minority people.

Aniwar Imin, director of the human resources and social security bureau of Xinjiang, said that Xinjiang-based businesses owned by the central government employ 210,000 local people, 63 percent of all their staff.

China has worked to safeguard women's rights to employment and equal access to economic resources. According to the All China Women's Federation, micro-finance loans worth 16.6 billion yuan (2.56 billion USdollars) had been issued by October 2010 to help 410,000 women to start their own businesses.

China has relaxed restrictions on the disabled people for applying for drivers' license by introducing a revised "Regulations on Application and Use of Driver's Licenses" in 2009.

The revised regulations allow, for the first time, Chinese who are able to sit by themselves despite their paralyzed limbs to acquire a license for adapted vehicles.

According to official statistics, there are 28 million people with paralyzed limbs in China, and many are longing to drive but had been deprived of the right. Some have driven anyway, hoping to avoid being caught by the police.

A man with disability surnamed Zhao, who is taking driving classes in Beijing, said, "The idea of getting a driver's license makes me excited, which means I could go to farther places. I feel more decent sitting in a car than in a wheelchair."

China has also made headway in getting every orphans a roof overhead and getting children of migrant workers to classrooms.

In April 2009, the SCIO published the National Human Rights Action Plan of China (2009-2010). It is China's first national plan on human rights.

Liu Huawen, vice director of the human rights studies center of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said fulfilling the human rights action plan as scheduled marked a milestone in China's human rights program.

Liu said, "Drafting and implementing national human rights action plan is a long-term undertaking, and there will be more such action plans coming."

Liu said he is confident that the Chinese government will make its people's lives more secure, decent and blissful.

The 56-page report released on Thursday made an overall assessment of the implementation of the Action Plan. It also specified China's efforts on implementing the plan to safeguarding people's economic, social and cultural rights, people's civil and political rights, as well as promoting the cause of human rights in other spheres.