China faces anger on women’s rights

World snapshot

WORLD leaders pledged money and political clout to achieve equality for women by 2030 at a UN meeting on Sunday co-chaired by China’s President Xi Jinping, who has faced strong criticism for cracking down on women’s rights activists.

Among the Chinese leader’s strongest critics was US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who tweeted: “Xi hosting a meeting on women’s rights at the UN while persecuting feminists? Shameless.”

Leaders and diplomats from about 80 countries attended the meeting to mark the 20th anniversary of the UN women’s conference in Beijing and press for implementation of its 150-page action plan for gender equality – one of the 17 new development goals adopted by world leaders on Friday.

As US first lady, Mrs Clinton galvanised the 1995 Beijing conference with a rousing speech that included words that have become a mantra for the global women’s movement: “Human rights are women’s rights – and women’s rights are human rights.”

Mr Xi partly echoed her words, telling Sunday’s meeting that “women’s rights and interests are basic human rights. They must be protected by laws and regulations”.

But he did not mention any of the women activists targeted by the Chinese Government, women such as 71-year-old journalist Gao Yu, arrested in 2014 and sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of “leaking state secrets overseas”, or human rights lawyer Wang Yu, a campaigner against sexual harassment of school girls and defender of women’s rights activists who was arrested in July and is being held at a secret location on suspicion of “inciting subversion of state power”.

Nor did he mention the five women who spent 37 days in detention this year because they planned to advocate against sexual harassment on public transport.

In a letter Thursday to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and UN Women, the “China Feminist Five” expressed hope that Mr Xi would announce concrete plans and measurements to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment, and that their wrongful cases would be dropped soon. He did not.

Mr Xi did draw loud applause when he announced a $US10 million donation to UN Women, the agency promoting women’s rights.

He also announced other initiatives including that in the next five years China would help developing countries produce “health projects” for women and children, and provide training opportunities for 100,000 women in other developing countries.