III. Rights of Ethnic Minorities, Women, Children, the Elderly and the Disabled

China will take further measures to protect the legitimate rights and interests of ethnic minorities, women, children, elderly people and the disabled.

(1) Rights of ethnic minorities

China is a unified multi-ethnic country, where all ethnic groups are equal, and the state protects the lawful rights and interests of ethnic minorities.

- The right of ethnic minorities to participate in the management of state and social affairs on an equal footing is guaranteed by the state according to law. The state will make sure that minority groups have a proportionate number of representatives in organs of state power and administrative, judicial and procuratorate organs at both the central and local levels. Ethnic-minority citizens will enjoy favorable treatment when they apply to take the national civil service examinations.

- The state attaches importance to the training and utilization of talented people from ethnic minorities. Greater efforts are made to cultivate and select ethnic-minority personnel for Party and administrative work. The state supports areas inhabited by ethnic minorities in compact communities in their implementation of the national revitalization program for highly-skilled personnel and the support program for talented people in rural areas. The state will continue to train general medical practitioners and employ professional medical practitioners for rural areas in places where ethnic minorities live in compact communities on the state budget, and cultivate professionals of ethnic-minority medicine.

- The state guarantees that ethnic minorities enjoy equal right to public services. The state constantly strengthens the capacity of public services in ethnic autonomous areas. The gaps in the incomes of urban and rural residents, compulsory education, medical care, social security between ethnic-minority areas and the national average level will be significantly narrowed; existing problems in education, medical care, drinking water, communication, employment and other areas will be significantly alleviated; the production and living conditions of the farmers and herdsmen in pasturing areas, border areas, areas inhabited by ethnic minorities with small populations, and impoverished ethnic-minority areas will be improved significantly.

- The right of ethnic minorities to economic development is guaranteed. The state will implement policies and special programs for promoting the socio-economic development of the five autonomous regions, i.e. Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Guangxi, Ningxia and Tibet, and for supporting the development of other ethnic-minority regions, and work to make sure that the main indices of economic development for ethnic-minority regions are higher than those of the national average. The state will continue to formulate and implement special programs to support the development of minority ethnic groups with small populations, vitalize border areas and bring prosperity to their residents, and develop special undertakings of ethnic minorities and other programs. In major pastoral areas, the state will establish a subsidy and bonus mechanism for the protection of steppe ecosystem, guaranteeing that the income growth of herdsmen is not lower than that of the farmers in the same province (autonomous region). Vigorous efforts will be made to promote ethnic-minority trade and the production of ethnic consumer products, implement relevant preferential policies, and satisfy the special production and life needs of ethnic minorities. Emphasis will be put on the protection of the ecological environment in ethnic-minority regions.

- Education for ethnic minorities is to be promoted. The state will transfer more public education resources to ethnic-minority regions, quicken the development of preschool education, support the standardized construction of compulsory-education schools in border counties and poverty-stricken counties of ethnic autonomous areas, strengthen the construction of boarding schools in ethnic-minority regions, actively and steadily promote bilingual education, vigorously promote the development of vocational education, make greater efforts in the training and cultivation of teachers, and strengthen pair-up assistance in education.

- Cultural rights of ethnic minorities are guaranteed. The state will make greater efforts to protect the special cultures of ethnic-minority groups, strengthen the protection of their cultural relics, carry out emergency protection of endangered projects and representative inheritors who are aged or otherwise feeble, and implement overall protection for areas where intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities is concentrated. Traditional sports of ethnic minorities will also be given state support.

- Ethnic minorities' right to learn, use and develop their own spoken and written languages is guaranteed in accordance with the law. The state will promote the standardization and information processing of the spoken and written languages of ethnic minorities, and build databases of China's endangered ethnic-minority languages.

(2) Women's rights

China implements the Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests, promotes gender equality, and guarantees the lawful rights and interests of women.

- The state will continue its efforts to promote women's equal participation in the management of state and social affairs. The state will gradually increase the proportion of women representatives in the national and local people's congresses and political consultative conferences, and make sure that the people's congresses, governments, and political consultative conferences at the provincial and municipal levels as well as county-level governments include at least one female member in the leadership. The state will gradually increase the proportion of women holding principal positions in the leadership of local governments and departments at/above the county level, the proportion of women on boards of directors and boards of supervisors as well as the leadership of enterprises, and the proportion of women representatives at workers' conferences and faculty congresses. There should also be a certain proportion of women members in village committees and community committees.

- The state makes efforts to eliminate gender discrimination in employment and realize equal payment for men and women doing the same work. The state will strengthen special labor protection for female workers, timely revise the standards of special labor protection for women workers, and encourage the signing and implementation of special collective contracts for the protection of female workers' rights and interests in enterprises that have established labor unions.

- Women's right to having equal access to economic resources and to participating in economic development is guaranteed. The state will make sure that women in rural areas enjoy equal rights with men in the contracting and management of land, use of rural homesteads and distribution of collective income.

- The level of reproductive health services for women will be raised. The state will improve the maternity service system in urban and rural areas, and make sure that maternity insurance covers all employing units. The state will increase the proportion of women giving birth in hospitals, lower mortality rate during delivery, increase the screening rate of common gynecological diseases, and increase the rate of early diagnosis and treatment of cervical cancer and breast cancer to lower the mortality rate in this regard. The state will gradually provide free folic acid and other nutrients to women of childbearing age in rural areas as a pre-gestational and early-pregnancy supplement, promote trial programs of free pre-gestational checkups, and provide free technical service to women who plan for pregnancy in rural areas, including relevant health care education.

- The state will prevent and prohibit domestic violence against women. The state will formulate a law on domestic violence, and improve the inter-departmental cooperative mechanism for the prevention and prohibition of domestic violence, and the integrative work mechanism of prevention, prohibition and assistance.

- The state will crack down on the crimes of abducting and trafficking in women. The state will stick to the principles which stress prevention as the major measure, integrate crackdown with prevention, put people first and exert comprehensive control, improve the vigilance of the whole society against abduction and women's precautionary awareness, provide physical and mental rehabilitation services to rescued women, and help them return to society.

- The state will strengthen the statistical work on gender data, and improve the collecting and publishing of gender-specific data in the fields of economic and social development.

(3) Children's rights

China implements the Law on the Protection of Minors, promotes the legislation process regarding children's welfare, preschool education, family education and other issues, and effectively guarantees children's rights to life, development, protection and participation for their best interests.

- Children's right to health is guaranteed. The state will constantly lower the mortality rates of infants and children under the age of five, and make sure to lower the rate of severe and frequently-occurring birth defects that lead to disabilities, and lower the disability rate due to birth defects. It will control the rate of low birth weight at under 5%. Ninety-five percent of the children in the country's central and western cities, and the entire eastern part will be vaccinated in the national immunization program, and the figure for rural areas in the central and western regions will reach 90%. The state will implement a nutrition enhancement program for students receiving compulsory education in rural areas, and make sure that students in primary and secondary schools generally reach the basic requirements of the National Standard of Students' Physical Health, and that students' endurance, strength, speed and other physical qualities realize significant improvement. During school time, students will be given at least one hour of sports and exercise every day, and the rates of nearsightedness, dental caries, obesity and malnutrition will be put under control.

- Administration of school buses and campus safety will be strengthened.

- Children's right to leisure and entertainment will be guaranteed. Children's services will be established in urban and rural areas to provide venues and facilities for games, recreation, education, health care, social and psychological support for children and their families. The state will make sure that at least one professional or part-time children's social worker is employed in a local community, village or town.

- Children's right to participate will be protected. The state encourages and supports children's participation in family and social life according to the degree of their physical and psychological development, and works to create a favorable social environment for children's participation.

- Discrimination against girls will be eliminated. The state will implement the reward-and-support policy for families with girls only, and try out support schemes for such families in impoverished areas. It bans identification of the sex of a fetus for other than medical purposes and termination of pregnancy in the case of a female fetus.

- The state will gradually expand the coverage of children's welfare. The state will improve the security system for orphans, increase the proportions of fostered and adopted orphans, and gradually bring unsupported children, children with severe or rare diseases and severely disabled children into the security system. The state will increase the emergency rehabilitation rate of disabled children under six years old, and guarantee the rights to life, education, health care and other rights of AIDS-affected children and convicts' children under 18 years old. The state will increase the number of institutions providing professional services for the upbringing and protection of orphans, protection of homeless children and rehabilitation of disabled children.

- Children's personal rights will be protected. The state will crack down on the abduction, maltreatment and abandonment of children, and the forcing of children into begging and other illegal activities and crimes that infringe upon the personal rights of children. The state will protect children from all forms of sexual abuse, and provide physical and psychological services to rescued children before properly resettling them.

- The state will prohibit the employment of child labor and exploitation of children, and will severely punish such illegal activities according to law.

- The legal proceedings in criminal cases involving juveniles will be improved. A conditional non-prosecution mechanism and criminal record sealing mechanism will be established. A good job will be done in community-based corrections of juvenile delinquents, and juveniles will be guaranteed legal service and assistance in accordance with the law.

(4) Senior citizens' rights

China implements the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly, gradually improves the old-age security system, pushes forward the construction of old-age service system, and guarantees the legitimate rights and interests of the elderly.

- The state will improve the old-age social security system that covers both urban and rural residents. The government will provide basic pensions for rural residents and unemployed urban residents above 60 years old, and issue reward and support subsidies to parents in rural areas who are both above 60 and who have only one child or two daughters, preliminarily realizing universal coverage for all senior citizens.

- The state will improve preferential treatment measures for the elderly, actively providing various forms of preferential treatment and prioritized and preferential services to the elderly, and gradually increasing the level of social welfare for senior citizens.

- The state will improve the support policy for home-based old-age care. The state will improve the administrative policy of household registration transfer for elderly people, thus creating conditions for the transfer of senior citizens along with their providers. It will also improve policies that support and encourage home-based care and security services for elderly people.

- The state implements the Program for the Construction of Old-age Social Service System (2011-2015). By 2015, the state will increase the number of beds in day-care facilities and nursing homes by 3,420,000, and extend support to the establishment of not-for-profit nursing homes by private businesses.

- The state will improve the basic medical insurance for the elderly. Grassroots-level medical care services will provide health management services to local residents above 65 years old, and establish and keep health profiles for them.

- The state will enrich senior citizens' cultural lives. The state will increase financial investment into the construction of colleges for senior citizens, enlarge the scale of such schools, increase the supply of public cultural products for the elderly, organize public fitness activities for them and provide convenience for their participation in voluntary programs. In order to promote senior citizens' participation in social life, the state will make sure that at least 95% of urban communities and 80% of rural communities have their own senior citizens' associations by 2015.

- The state will promote the construction of elderly-friendly cities and livable communities for senior citizens. The state will comprehensively implement the technological standards of urban and rural construction projects related to senior citizens, as well as the standards of renovation of barrier-free facilities and the construction of facilities for the elderly in newly-built communities.

- The state will expand channels of legal assistance for the elderly and the emphasis is to provide legal services to citizens of advanced age, and senior citizens who live alone, are disabled or have any other physical difficulty.

(5) Rights and interests of the disabled

China develops undertakings relating to the disabled, improves social security and services for them, and protects their lawful rights and interests.

- The state will implement the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Disabled and improve relevant supporting laws and regulations. The state will formulate regulations on the construction of barrier-free environments, research and formulate regulations on the rehabilitation of the disabled, and research and revise the regulations on education for the disabled.

- The state will include the disabled people in both urban and rural areas in the basic endowment insurance and basic medical insurance according to relevant regulations. The state will establish a life subsidy system for the financially-challenged disabled population and nursing care allowances for the severely disabled, in an effort to supply a steady institutional guarantee for the basic life of the disabled.

- The state will comprehensively carry out community-based rehabilitation services. The state will help 13 million disabled people obtain rehabilitation to various degrees through the implementation of key rehabilitation programs, organize the supply of five million pieces of supporting devices of various types and provide basic supporting devices for those in need. It will also provide subsidies on 1.6 million occasions for community or household services for people suffering from mental disabilities and diseases, as well as for seriously disabled people.

- The state will raise the education level of the disabled. The state will make sure that school-age disabled children generally receive compulsory education. It will promote compulsory education for disabled children in such a way that they attend the same classes as other healthy children where convenient, providing education for disabled people that suits their needs and capacities. The state will develop pre-school rehabilitation education for disabled children and vocational education for the disabled, promoting senior high-school education and higher education for the disabled, and reducing illiteracy among the young and middle-aged disabled population.

- The state will stabilize and expand employment for the disabled. The state will provide employment services and vocational training for disabled people who seek employment, and make sure that an additional 800,000 disabled people will be employed by 2015.

- The state will strengthen development-oriented poverty reduction programs for the disabled population in rural areas. The state will help eight million needy disabled people in rural areas to improve their living conditions, increase their incomes and enhance their abilities for development. The state will provide skills training for 800,000 disabled people in rural areas, and continue to implement the "sunshine housing project" to improve the housing conditions of impoverished disabled people in rural areas.

- The state will require public cultural facilities to give access to the disabled free of charge or at preferential rates. The state encourages the construction of digital reading rooms for the blind in public libraries in areas that are capable of doing so, opens public sports facilities to the disabled gratis or at preferential rates, and carries out mass cultural and sports activities that conform to the physical and psychological characteristics of the disabled.

- The state will quicken the construction and renovation of barrier-free facilities. It will create barrier-free cities, counties and districts nationwide, strengthen the construction of barrier-free facilities of public transport including the railway, as well as the construction of information accessibility. The state will carry out renovation of barrier-free facilities for families of the disabled and subsidize those who have financial difficulties in the renovation.

- The state will expand the scale of publications in braille. It will strengthen the construction of publishing bases of braille books, and realize the annual production goal of 700,000 copies of such books and periodicals in 1,600 titles. It will also develop music scores for the blind, as well as reference books, periodicals, digital audio books and encyclopedias for them.

- The state will improve a coordinating work mechanism of legal assistance to the disabled. It will improve legal assistance to the disabled to protect their rights and interests by law.