China has been working on an employment bill in a bid to address increasing discrimination on grounds of gender, age and official place of origin in the country's job market.

China Business News reported on Tuesday that an official from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, Dang Xiaojie, said that the bill has been in progress since the second half of 2003 and has been sent, for review, to various ministries and provincial governments in the country before being reviewed by the State Council, China's cabinet.

Dang Xiaojie, the bill initiator, has been cautious when commenting on the new bill, saying that discrimination in employment is not merely a legal issue but also a social problem. If a bill that promotes equality of employment passed in the future, there would still be a long way to go before the final solution to the problem was in place.

Another research fellow, Yue Songdong from the Development and Research Center under the State Council, said that increasing discrimination is due to incomplete laws and regulations in this regard.

He said that Clause 12 of China's labor law stipulates that no discrimination should be allowed on the basis of nationality, ethnic groups, gender and religious belief, but this does not address the current forms of discrimination in the job market.

The expert suggested that Clause 12 needs to be revised in order to further oppose discriminations in employment.

But Wang Wenzhen, one of the new bill's major architects and the director of the Research Office for Labor and Social Security Laws under the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, said that amending the labor law would be complex and the best way to prevent discrimination would be to enact a special new bill.

Wang Wenzhen noted that the employment bill has been drafted with all necessary efforts to make it applicable in most conditions, but implementation will be the real test of whether or not it will work.

(Xinhua News Agency September 8, 2005)