China revises law on women safety, a first in decades: Report

China updated its decades-old women’s law to improve gender equality, days after the Communist Party excluded women from its upper  elections for the first time in 25 years. The nation’s top legislative body passed an amendment to the Women’s Rights and Interests Protection Law on Sunday, according to a statement on the website of China’s National People’s Congress.  The revised law will be adopted from 2023. The government should take necessary measures to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women, according to the revised law. 

The amendment prohibits restricting the promotion of female employees due to marriage, pregnancy, maternity leave and other circumstances at the workplace, and requires lower level governments to report suspected abduction or trafficking of women to the police in a timely manner.

The amendment instructs on strengthing the protection of women’s rights, Zang Tiewei, spokesman for the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress legislative affairs commission, said. “The revision is based on in-depth research, focusing on solving thorny problems in the field of women’s rights,” Zang said, according to Chinese Business Herald, adding that the legislation should “support women to better balance childbearing and work.” He named sexual harassment and workplace discrimination as issues the law tried to combat, adding that the legislation should “support women to better balance childbearing and work.”   

An earlier draft banned employers from stating gender preferences in job ads or asking female applicants about their marital or pregnancy status.