WRIC 2025 Women’s Day Calls for Attention to Women’s Rights Issues in China
Women’s Rights in China (WRIC) March 8,2025
International Women’s Day on March 8 is a day to commemorate the struggle for equal rights for women. However, in China, the freedom, dignity, and even lives of countless women are bound and stripped away by cold iron chains. Three years ago, the “Chain Woman” case remains unresolved, with the truth still being distorted and covered up; the case of Li Yixue, who was forcibly sent to a mental hospital, is the latest in a series of publicized incidents of women suffering similar fates. Like many others, she continues to face threats of either silencing or being sent back to a mental hospital, and her lawsuit against the mental institution has disappeared without a trace. The so-called “pocket crime” of “subversion of state power” has unjustly caused thousands of women with ideals and aspirations to suffer imprisonment.
The basic rights of Chinese women are being stripped away, ignored, and even destroyed, to a degree more dangerous than 20 years ago. Around the year 2000, although Chinese society was not particularly friendly to women’s rights and support from the government was scarce, at least intellectuals in China were able to publish articles supporting women’s rights in some official media outlets, and feminists could freely write to expose injustices against women in social fields such as the workplace, promotions, and domestic violence. Women’s rights groups funded by overseas private foundations and the UN have a certain scale and have achieved a lot.There was also a wide public space for feminist writing, including those advocating for sexual liberation. However, in the more than ten years since Xi Jinping came to power, although laws and regulations seem to be continuously added or amended, grassroots organizations and educational institutions have launched campaigns to study the “Three Obedience’s and Four Virtues” and the concept of “male superiority and female inferiority.” The feudal culture that had been rejected for many years has resurfaced in today’s China, and the protection of women’s basic rights and feminist thought has seen a shocking regression. Women holding signs against sexual harassment are being arrested and imprisoned one by one, and advocating for women’s rights can only be done through humorous, roundabout expressions in comedy shows. The disconnect between legislation, law enforcement, and education in China is affecting the progress of society as a whole. As the Constitution stipulates, people have freedom of speech, assembly, and demonstration, but in reality, Chinese people have none of these freedoms. Those who exercise these constitutional rights are either enduring torture in prisons or are on their way to prison.
With the deterioration of China’s economic and political environment, the situation of Chinese women has become more difficult. The degree and method of suppression of women who fight for their rights and dare to speak out are the most horrible in decades. In addition to the hasty settlement of the Xuzhou “Chain Woman” case that attracted national attention three years ago and the whereabouts of the victim are unknown, in the case of a female master’s degree student in Heshun County, Shanxi, the government insisted that she was “lost” and “taken in” despite being trafficked and raped. Many departments are also suspected of publicly falsifying and shielding the interest chain, but the whole case has also been left unresolved. A primary school teacher in Guyuan City, Ningxia raped and molested at least 15 primary school girls, and was convicted of multiple crimes and sentenced to only 13 years. A middle school teacher in Baise, Guangxi, sexually assaulted an underage girl, causing her to commit suicide after suffering from depression for several years. The suspect has only been suspended from his job. The so-called “Education Camps” and “Pomegranate Flower Project” implemented by the Chinese government in Xinjiang, and the “Tibetan Children’s Boarding School” expanded in Tibetan areas, have caused a large number of Uyghur and Tibetan children to be separated from their parents, affecting the physical and mental health of countless children.
Despite the surge of the #Metoo movement in countries around the world, there are very few Chinese women who dare to stand up and accuse victims of sexual harassment, especially when facing defendants with money and power, it is difficult for victims to obtain legal support. For example, Zhou Xiaoxuan sued CCTV host Zhu Jun for sexual harassment. After years of legal wrangling , she eventually lost the case due to “insufficient evidence.”
Even worse, Chinese police blatantly sent human rights activists to mental hospitals for detention, such as Wang Liqin, He Fangmei (including her young son and two younger daughters), Ding Yan, Dong Yaoqiong, Li Tiantian, Wu Yanan, Li Yixue, etc. The police and hospital personnel who violated the law and tortured innocent people mentally and physically were rarely investigated and prosecuted. Women who dared to speak out for freedom have tragically sacrificed their own freedom, such as Huang Xueqin, Zhang Zhan, Xu Na, Wang Hongxia, Gu Lixian, Senji Zhuoma, Xu Yan, etc., as well as Hong Kong’s Gwyneth Ho Kwai-lam, Winnie Yu, Carol Ng Man-yee, Jessica Chu, Claudia Mo, Helena Wong, Tonyee Chow, Prince Wong, Alice Wong, Carol Ng, Tiffany Yuen, etc. Currently, more than 1,600 female political prisoners are detained in Chinese prisons.
On the occasion of celebrating International Women’s Day, we cannot forget or remain silent. We call on governments, human rights organizations, women’s groups, media, legal circles and all Chinese people with conscience to pay more attention to the basic rights of Chinese women, speak out for their personal freedom and freedom of speech, and urge the Chinese government to improve the social, political and economic status of women, so as to promote the change of a social culture that discriminates against women.
Our appeal is:
- Release all political prisoners in prison. Freedom of speech is not subversion of state power and cannot be convicted. Judicial errors must be corrected.
- Immediately amend the law and legislate to ensure severe punishment of criminals of sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape and domestic violence, especially those who commit sexual crimes against minors.
- Strictly enforce laws and regulations on domestic violence, sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape, and investigate the legal responsibilities of those who neglect, neglect and misjudge related cases.
- The Chinese government must strictly investigate the criminal activities of the profit chain of abduction and trafficking in similar cases such as the “Chain Woman” and publish the true investigation results of all similar cases.
- The legal responsibilities of those involved in the arbitrary detention of human rights activists and dissidents in mental hospitals, including police and medical staff, must be investigated.
We believe that justice may be late, but it cannot be absent forever!