56th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights

CHINA STATEMENT
Presented by Huang Ciping

Thank you Mister Chairman.

Good afternoon distinguished members of the commission. We address the item 12 regarding the Violation of the Chinese Women's Rights. I speak on behalf of the Transnational Radical Party and of Mister Wei Jingsheng.

I have heard many westerners say:"Over the last five decades, everything the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has done is bad, except in improving women's status." Such a conclusion is questionable and need to be discussed here.

Indeed, since the CCP has ruled China, the relative status of women compared with the men's status has been improved quite some in general. In China, the equality between men and women has received basic confirmation.

However, together with their fathers, husbands and sons, women have been robbed of most of their basic human rights. Just like the Chinese men, some Chinese women are sentenced because of what they say, or even executed. Just like the Chinese men, some Chinese women are handcuffed and tortured in their prison cell. Just like the Chinese men, some Chinese women are severely exploited financially. As hard working slaves, they are locked in barred factories and not allowed to return home. Just like the Chinese men, the Chinese women do not have the rights to organise themselves, instead they let the CCP's puppet organizations use their names. Just like the Chinese men, some Chinese women are harassed for their faith, their religion and their beleives; they are interrogated and put in jail for that... It is just to much to be listed here.

Is this the improvement of the Chinese women's status? Of course it is not. The Chinese women are oppressed as slaves to the Chinese men, instead of living equally with men. These are the so called "living rights" which the Chinese government has been parading about and so proud of. Is living like slaves a kind of "human rights"?

Besides to bare the same degree of oppression, exploitation, horror and assault, the Chinese women suffer more than Chinese men.

Let me take some examples here. Like animals ready to be slaughtered, Chinese women are chased and caught by perverse officials and afterwards taken to the hospital for abortion and sterilization. Many millions of baby girls were and still are aborted or abandonned simply because of their sex. Even when they grow up, they still face vast discrimination and abuses for their whole life. Women in the countryside are sold as brides. Women can not find a job because of their sex. While the Chinese government has so many policies and enforcements to effectively forbid the freedom of association and the freedom of press, it is really puzzling that it does not even have an effective policy to forbid sexual discrimination, should the government really means to stop it. Nowadays, as the Chinese face the mounting pressure of high unemloyment rate, women are the first to lose their jobs. Many of them end up losing their means to make a living unless they sell their body. There are also cases where female political prisoners are sexually offended and attacked in various ways, including being put in men's prison cells and gang raped by them.

These are not crimes done by a few Chinese communist officials. These are organized crimes of the communist government, which are produced and encouraged by its officials. This is a special crime pattern against the Chinese women. These crimes are conducted by a dictatorship that is so used to invade people's privacy and violate Chinese women's rights. Women's rights issue is a human rights issue. How do you expect this dictatorship with such a shameful record on human rights' abuses to respect womens'rights?

During a national banquet hosted by the president of the Czech Republic, I had a chat with several leaders of the democratic Czech Republic and Poland. They told me moving stories about their mothers and their wives. I responded to them: "Indeed, the tremendous torture we had to suffer, people can learn about it and picture it. However, it is harder to imagine the even greater pain our loved ones had to endure. Besides to maintain a living and to be harassed by the secret police, they had to face the harsh environment to keep their dignity and self-respect. All the time, they were laughed at and insulted by their past time friends, distant relatives, colleagues and even strangers on the street. Not only they were scared for themselves, but also they were worried and scared for their loved ones in prison. They carried the pressure and pain for us, yet they had to find every possible mean in a quite miserable effort to help us. In the dark nights, their tears dropped behind the doors and none of us could see..."

These Czech and Polish friends hugged me with tears in their eyes. And they said: "How many others could understand all these much worse oppression and pain bared by our loved ones besides ourselves? They are indeed the most respectable human beings who demonstrate their courage during our worst nightmares."

Under the one party dictatorship of the Chinese communist party, millions lived and still live in the jail cells as political prisoners. Yet, there are even more women that had to and still have to suffer along, to be supportive to their loved ones and be courageous.

Just like oppressed women in other parts of the world, Chinese women sacrifice for the deserved human rights and hapiness of the whole human race. For that, they bare abuse threat and pressure from the evil force of the world. In particular, there are mothers, wives and daughters of these political prisoners who are baring the largest share of the pain and of the suffering for justice, equality, freedom and human rights in this world.

Let us listen closely to their stories and their cry. Let us care about their pain and their suffering. This should be our responsability.

I would like to thank the Transnational Radical Party to have invited me to raise these problems here. Thank you to all the representativesfor their support in favor of the human rights. Thank you Mister Chairman for your attention.