Women's New Rights in China

China finally amended their Women’s Protection Law. They did this on October 30, 2022, however, the new law didn’t take effect until January 1, 2023. Exactly 2 months ago! The law tried to stop gender discrimination and sexual harrasment in the workplace. The law is also very much targeting businesses by giving them new requirements for female employee management.

The amendments to the law created a list of behaviors that businesses must not engage in during their search for new employees. Some examples are enlisted below:

• Restricting a job offer to men or specifying that men will be given priority.

• Inquiring or investigating the marital and maternal situation of women job applicants.

• Requiring pregnancy tests as an entry physical examination item when applying for a job.

• Making marriage or maternity status a condition for recruitment and employment.

• Refusing to hire women on the grounds of gender or raising the standards for the recruitment process of women in any other way.

The new amendments also aim to prevent sexual harassment. Officially, Chinese law does prohibit sexual harassment in the workplace, and says that it is the employers who must prevent sexual harassment and provide proper channels for any complaint. While this was good, the new amendments now defines sexual harassment as: verbal remarks, written language, images, physical behaviours, or other actions that could degrade a women. The law obliges businesses to implement the measures in order to diminish the amount of sexual harassment. These new implementations include some of the following;

• Specifying the responsible department or personnel.

• Carrying out education and training activities on prevention and stopping sexual harassment.

• Taking necessary security and safeguard measures.

• Setting up complaint telephone, mailbox, etc., and unblocking complaint channels.

• Supporting and assisting female victims in defending their rights according to law and providing psychological counseling to female victims when necessary.

While all of this is great and an overdue step into the 21st century, there is still a lot more to be done and it remains to be seen how well implemented and enforced these laws will be.