Four million Chinese women lifted out of poverty by local industrial development since 2015

By Yang Hao, People’s Daily       

Women have fully engaged in and been broadly benefited from the fight against poverty, said a white paper on the progress of women's cause in the past 70 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China recently issued by China’s State Council Information Office.

Women in impoverished regions have showed unprecedented passion in poverty alleviation, noted Wu Haiying, Vice-President and Member of the Secretariat of All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) at a press conference on the white paper. On one hand, women are leading their families out of poverty; on the other hand, they are helping their peers get rich.

Over 4 million impoverished women have seen their income rise as a result of the development of local industries since 2015 when a national anti-poverty campaign for women was carried out by the ACWF, according to Wu.

Under the assistance from women’s federations at various levels and poverty-relief departments, 61 billion yuan of micro credit has been allocated to women from 1.1 million registered impoverished households.

"The great achievements China has made in the development of women's cause is attributed to the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC)," said Huang Xiaowei, vice chair of the National Working Committee on Children and Women under the State Council, at the press conference.

The CPC has brought profound changes to the fate of the Chinese people and Chinese nation, and also that of the Chinese women, Huang remarked.

“For instance, the CPC guided the making of China’s first constitution, marriage law, and election law. The constitution backs gender equality, assuring that women enjoy the same rights with men in politics, economy, culture, society and family life. The marriage law endows women and men with equality in marriage, protecting women’s free marriage and equal status with men in family life. The election law guarantees that women share equal rights with men to vote and to be elected, making women the real masters of the country and society,” Huang said.