Adopted at the Fifth Session of the Seventh National People's
Congress on April 3, 1992
Contents
Chapter I General
Provisions
Chapter II Political Rights
Chapter III Rights and Interests
Relating to Culture and Education
Chapter IV Rights and Interests
Relating to Work
Chapter V Rights and Interests
Relating to Property
Chapter VI Rights Relating to the
Person
Chapter VII Rights and Interests
Relating to Marriage and Family
Chapter VIII Legal Responsibility
Chapter IX Supplementary
Provisions
Chapter I General Provisions
Article 1 In accordance with the Constitution and the actual conditions of
the country, this Law is formulated to protect women's lawful rights and
interests, promote the equality between men and women and allow full play to
women's role in socialist modernization.
Article 2 Women shall enjoy equal rights with men in all aspects of
political, economic, cultural, social and family life.
The State shall protect the special rights and interests enjoyed by women
according to law, and gradually perfect its social security system with respect
to women.
Discrimination against, maltreatment of, or cruel treatment in any manner
causing injury even death of women shall be prohibited.
Article 3 The protection of women's lawful rights and interests is a common
responsibility of the whole society. State organs, public organizations,
enterprises and institutions as well as urban and rural mass organizations of
self-government at the grass-roots level shall, in accordance with the
provisions of this Law and other relevant laws, protect women's rights and
interests.
The State shall take effective measures to provide necessary conditions for
women to exercise their rights according to law.
Article 4 The State Council and the people's governments of provinces,
autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government
shall, by taking organizational measures, coordinate with relevant departments
in ensuring the protection of women's rights and interests. The specific organs
shall be designated by the State Council and the people's governments of
provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central
Government.
Article 5 The All-China Women's Federation and women's federations at various
levels shall represent and uphold the rights of women of all nationalities and
all walks of life, and strive for the protection of women's rights and
interests.
The trade unions and the Communist Youth League organizations shall also,
within the scope of their respective work, strive for the protection of women's
rights and interests.
Article 6 The State shall encourage women to cultivate a sense of
self-respect, self-confidence, self-reliance and self-strengthening, and to
safeguard their own lawful rights and interests by utilizing law. Women shall
abide by the laws of the State, respect social morality and perform their
obligations prescribed by law.
Article 7 People's governments at various levels and relevant departments
shall commend and award the organizations and individuals that have made notable
achievements in the protection of women's lawful rights and interests.
Chapter II Political Rights
Article 8 The State shall guarantee that women enjoy equal political rights
with men.
Article 9 Women have the right to conduct State affairs, manage economic and
cultural undertakings and administer social affairs through various channels and
in various ways.
Article 10 Women shall enjoy the equal right, with men, to vote and to stand
for election.
Among deputies to the National People's Congress and local people's
congresses at various levels, there shall be an appropriate number of women
deputies, and the proportion thereof shall be raised gradually.
Article 11 The State shall actively train and select female cadres.
State organs, public organizations, enterprises and institutions must, in
appointing cadres, adhere to the principle of equality between men and women,
and attach importance to the training and selection of female cadres for leading
posts.
The State shall pay attention to the training and selection of female cadres
of minority nationalities.
Article 12 Women's federations at various levels and their member
organizations may recommend female cadres to State organs, public organizations,
enterprises or institutions.
Article 13 The departments concerned shall listen to and accept criticisms or
rational suggestions regarding the protection of women's rights and interests;
with respect to complaints or charges against, or exposures of infringement upon
women's rights and interests, the departments concerned must ascertain the
facts, and be responsible for the disposition thereof; no organization or
individual may suppress such complaints, charges or exposures or resort to
retaliation.
Chapter III Rights and Interests Relating to Culture
and Education
Article 14 The State shall guarantee that women enjoy equal rights with men
with respect to culture and education.
Article 15 Schools and departments concerned shall, by implementing the
relevant regulations of the State, guarantee that women enjoy equal rights with
men in such aspects as starting school, entering a higher school, job assignment
upon graduation, conferment of academic degrees and dispatch for study abroad.
Article 16 Schools shall, in line with the characteristics of female
adolescents, take measures in respect of education, management and facilities so
as to ensure their sound development in body and in mind.
Article 17 Parents or other guardians must perform their duty of ensuring
that female school-age children or adolescents receive the compulsory education.
Where parents or other guardians fail to send female school-age children or
adolescents to school, the local people's governments shall admonish and
criticize them and, by adopting effective measures, order them to send their
female school-age children or adolescents to school, with the exception of those
who, on account of illness or other special circumstances, are allowed by the
local people's governments not to go to school.
The governments, society and schools shall, in the light of the actual
difficulties of female school-age children or adolescents in schooling, take
effective measures to ensure that female school-age children or adolescents
receive compulsory education for the number of years locally prescribed.
Article 18 People's governments at various levels shall, in accordance with
relevant provisions, incorporate the work of elimination of illiteracy or
semi-literacy among women into plans for illiteracy elimination and
post-elimination education, adopt organizational forms and working methods
suitable to women's characteristics, and organize and supervise the relevant
departments in the implementation of such plans.
Article 19 People's governments at various levels and departments concerned
shall take measures to organize women in receiving vocational education and
technological training.
Article 20 State organs, public organizations, enterprises and institutions
shall, by implementing relevant regulations of the State, ensure that women
enjoy equal rights with men in their participation in scientific, technological,
literary, artistic and other cultural activities.
Chapter IV Rights and Interests Relating to
Work
Article 21 The State shall guarantee that women enjoy the equal right, with
men, to work.
Article 22 With the exception of the special types of work or post unsuitable
to women, no unit may, in employing staff and workers, refuse to employ women by
reason of sex or raise the employment standards for women.
Recruitment of female workers under the age of sixteen shall be prohibited.
Article 23 Equal pay for equal work shall be applied to men and women alike.
Women shall be equal with men in the allotment of housing and enjoyment of
welfare benefits.
Article 24 In such aspects as promotion in post or in rank, evaluation and
determination of professional and technological titles, the principle of
equality between men and women shall be upheld and discrimination against women
shall not be allowed.
Article 25 All units shall, in line with women's characteristics and
according to law, protect women's safety and health during their work or
physical labour, and shall not assign them any work or physical labour not
suitable to women.
Women shall be under special protection during menstrual period, pregnancy,
obstetrical period and nursing period.
Article 26 No unit may dismiss woman staff and workers or unilaterally
terminate labour contracts with them by reason of marriage, pregnancy, maternity
leave or baby-nursing.
Article 27 The State shall develop social insurance, social relief and
medical and health services to create conditions allowing old, ill or disabled
women to obtain material assistance.
Chapter V Rights and Interests Relating to
Property
Article 28 The State shall guarantee that women enjoy the equal right, with
men, to property.
Article 29 In joint property relationship derived from marriage or family,
the rights and interests enjoyed by women according to law may not be infringed
upon.
Article 30 Women shall enjoy equal rights with men in the allotment of
responsibility farmland, or grain ration farmland and in the approval of housing
sites in rural areas, and women's lawful rights thereto shall not be infringed
upon.
After marriage or divorce, women's responsibility farmland, grain ration
farmland and housing sites shall be secured.
Article 31 Women's equal right, with men, of succession to property shall be
protected by law. Among the statutory successors in the same order, women shall
not be discriminated against. Widowed women have the right to dispose of the
property inherited by them, and no one may interfere with the disposition
thereof.
Article 32 Widowed women who have made the predominant contributions in
maintaining their parents-in-law shall be regarded as the statutory successors
first in order, and their rights of succession thereto shall not be affected by
inheritance in subrogation.
Chapter VI Rights Relating to the Person
Article 33 The State shall guarantee that women enjoy equal rights with men
relating to their persons.
Article 34 Women's freedom of the person shall be inviolable. Unlawful
detention or deprivation or restriction of women's freedom of the person by
other illegal means shall be prohibited; and unlawful body search of women shall
be prohibited.
Article 35 Women's right of life and health shall be inviolable. Drowning,
abandoning or cruel infanticide in any manner of female babies shall be
prohibited; discrimination against or maltreatment of women who gave birth to
female babies or women who are sterile shall be prohibited; cruel treatment
causing injury even death of women by superstition or violence shall be
prohibited; maltreatment or abandonment of aged women shall be prohibited.
Article 36 Abduction of and trafficking in, or kidnapping of women shall be
prohibited; buying of women who are abducted and trafficked in, or kidnapped
shall be prohibited.
People's governments and relevant departments must take timely measures to
rescue women who are abducted and trafficked in, or kidnapped. If such women
have returned to their former places of residence, nobody may discriminate
against them, and the local people's governments and relevant departments shall
well settle the problems arising thereafter.
Article 37 Prostitution or whoring shall be prohibited.
It is prohibited for anyone to organize, force, seduce, shelter or introduce
a woman to engage in prostitution or employ or shelter a woman to engage in
obscene activities with others.
Article 38 Women's right of portrait shall be protected by law. The use of a
woman's portrait for profit-making purposes in advertisements, trademarks,
window display, books, magazines, etc., without the consent of the interested
woman shall be prohibited.
Article 39 Women's right of reputation and personal dignity shall be
protected by law. Damage to women's reputation or personal dignity by such means
as insult, libel and giving publicity to private affairs shall be prohibited.
Chapter VII Rights and Interests Relating to Marriage
and Family
Article 40 The State shall guarantee that women enjoy equal rights with men
in marriage and family.
Article 41 The State shall protect women's right of self-determination in
marriage. Interference with women's freedom of marriage or divorce shall be
prohibited.
Article 42 When a wife terminates gestation as required by the family
planning programme, her husband may not apply for a divorce within six months
after the operation; this restriction shall not apply in a case where the wife
applies for a divorce, or when the people's court deems it necessary to accept
the divorce application made by the husband.
Article 43 A woman shall enjoy equal rights with her spouse in possessing,
utilizing, profiting from and disposing of the property jointly possessed by the
husband and wife according to law, which shall not be affected by the status of
income of either party.
Article 44 The State shall protect divorced women's ownership of their
houses.
At the time of divorce, the husband and the wife shall seek agreement
regarding the disposition of their jointly possessed houses; if they fail to
reach an agreement, the people's court shall make a judgment in accordance with
the actual circumstances of both parties and by taking into consideration the
rights and interests of the wife and their child(children), except as otherwise
agreed upon by the two parties.
In a case where the husband and wife jointly rent a house or a room, the
wife's housing shall, at the time of divorce, be solved according to the
principle of taking into consideration the rights and interests of the wife and
their child(children).
In a case where the husband and wife live in a house allocated by the unit to
which the husband belongs, if the wife has no housing to live in at the time of
divorce, the husband shall help her in this regard whenever he can afford to.
Article 45 Both parents shall enjoy the equal right to guardianship of their
minor child(children).
In a case where the father is deceased, incapacitated or under any other
circumstances that make him unable to act as the guardian of a minor
child(children), nobody may interfere with the mother's right of guardianship.
Article 46 At the time of divorce, if the wife becomes sterile because of the
sterilization operation or any other reasons, the problem to bring up the
child(children)shall be so handled that, while to the advantage of the rights
and interests of the child(children), due consideration shall be given to the
wife's reasonable demands.
Article 47 Women have the right to child-bearing in accordance with relevant
regulations of the State as well as the freedom not to bear any child.
Where a couple of child-bearing age practise family planning according to the
relevant regulations of the State, the departments concerned shall provide safe
and effective contraceptives and techniques, and ensure the health and safety of
the woman receiving any birth-control operation.
Chapter VIII Legal Responsibility
Article 48 When a woman's lawful rights and interests are infringed upon, she
has the right to request the competent department concerned for a disposition or
bring a lawsuit in a people's court according to law.
When a woman's lawful rights and interests are infringed upon, she may file a
complaint with a women's organization, which shall request the relevant
department or unit to investigate and deal with the case so as to protect the
lawful rights and interests of the complainant.
Article 49 Where punishments are prescribed by other laws or regulations for
the infringement upon the lawful rights and interests of women in violation of
the provisions of this Law, punishments prescribed in such laws of regulation
shall apply.Article 50 Anyone who commits any of the following infringements
upon the lawful rights and interests of a woman shall be ordered to make
corrections by his or her unit or by an organ at a higher level, and the person
who is held directly responsible may, in light of the specific circumstances, be
subjected to administrative sanctions:
(1) evading, delaying or suppressing the investigation and disposition of a
complaint, a charge or an exposure regarding an infringement upon the rights and
interests of a woman;
(2) refusing to employ women or raising the employment standards for women
where women shall be employed in accordance with the provisions of relevant laws
or regulations;
(3) infringing upon women's rights and interests by violating the principle
of equality between men and women in such aspects as allotment of housing,
promotion in post or in rank, evaluation and determination of professional and
technological titles;
(4) dismissing female staff and workers by reason of their marriage,
pregnancy, maternity leave, or baby-nursing;
(5) infringing upon women's rights and interests by violating the principle
of equality between men and women in the allotment of responsibility farmland or
grain ration farmland or the approval of housing sites;
(6) infringing upon women's rights and interests by violating the principle
of equality between men and women in such aspects as starting school, entering a
higher school, job assignment upon graduation, conferment of academic degrees or
dispatch for study abroad.
Anyone who retaliates against a person making a complaint, a charge or an
exposure regarding an infringement upon a women's rights and interests shall be
ordered to make corrections or be subjected to administrative sanctions by his
or her unit or an organ at a higher level. If a State functionary commits
retaliation, which constitutes a crime, the offender shall be investigated for
criminal responsibility in accordance with the provisions in Article 146 of the
Criminal Law.
Article 51 Anyone who employs or shelters any woman to engage in obscene
activities with others shall be punished by applying mutatis mutandis the
provisions in Article 19 of the Regulations on Administrative Penalties for
Public Security; if the circumstances are so serious as to constitute a crime,
the offender shall be investigated for criminal responsibility by applying
mutatis mutandis the provisions in Article 160 of the Criminal Law.
Article 52 Where an infringement upon a woman's lawful rights and interests
causes loss of property or other damage, the infringer shall make due
compensation or bear other civil liabilities according to law.
Chapter IX Supplementary Provisions
Article 53 Relevant departments under the State Council may, on the basis of
this Law, formulate relevant regulations, which shall be submitted to the State
Council for approval and then be implemented.
The standing committees of the people congresses of provinces, autonomous
regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government may formulate
measures for implementation on the basis of this Law.
The people's congresses of national autonomous areas may formulate
regulations with appropriate adaptations or supplements in accordance with the
principles laid down in this Law and in light of the specific conditions of the
national women in respective areas. Regulations formulated by autonomous regions
shall be submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress
for the record; regulations formulated by autonomous prefectures or autonomous
counties shall be submitted to the standing committees of the people's
congresses of the relevant provinces or autonomous regions for approval before
entering into effect, and shall also be submitted to the Standing Committee of
the National People's Congress for the record.
Article 54 This Law shall enter into force as of October 1, 1992.
