ACWF VP Reports on Eliminating Women's Poverty

Vice-President of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) Tan Lin delivered a report on eliminating women's poverty at the first "10 .17" anti-poverty forum.[Xinhua]

Vice-President of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) Tan Lin delivered a report on eliminating women's poverty at the first "10 .17" anti-poverty forum, which was held in the Beijing International Convention Center on October 16.

Tan said that China has made remarkable achievements in terms of development and poverty alleviation, including greatly improving the living conditions of women living in poverty. Firstly, through poverty alleviation, we have been able to enhance women's autonomy and the empowerment of women; secondly, the status of women within their own families has been improved, which in turn has improved the economic situation of the whole family. Thirdly, improvements have also been made in child health.

Tan also said that eliminating women's poverty is not only government's duty but also the ACWF's duty. The ACWF's basic function is to represent and protect the rights of women to promote gender equality.

Tan then summarized the two main results the ACWF has achieved. The ACWF has looked deeply into the reasons behind poverty and advised the government on writing laws and regulations accordingly, making gender awareness written into law. In addition, the ACWF has launched several projects and services to directly help women, such as the 'Spring Bud' project, which helps young girls go to school.

Tan further reported that the ACWF launched training programs for 300 staff members in 14 poverty-stricken areas, so that they can better focus on the needs of impoverished women.

The ACWF also promotes projects like women's entrepreneurship program. For ethnic minority women in China's western regions, projects to teach hand-weaving skills have been launched to benefit local women. The ACWF has founded about 4,000 housekeeping services and training bases and trained more than 560,000 people, as well as helped 600,000 women find employment. The ACWF launched a program to provide free cancer screenings for rural women in 2009, which has so far led to 32.49 million rural women receiving free cervical cancer screenings and 4.66 million rural women receiving breast cancer screenings. The ACWF also launched a pilot project to improve childhood nutrition, specifically the elimination of infant anemia, which has helped 530,000 infants to improve their nutritional intake, while 822,000 infants were also provided with nutrition packages.

Tan concluded that eliminating women's poverty is still an uphill struggle due to existing gender biases. The ACWF will continue working with the government and NGOs.

The "10.17 Forum" is the first in a series of commemorative events to mark China's first Poverty-Relief Day, which falls on October 17, the same day as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

(Source: chinanews.com/Translated by Women of China)