▲Infographic. Figure/IC photo
The No. 1 document of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, released on February 22, specifically mentioned that "in accordance with the law, we will severely crack down on pornography, gambling, drugs in rural areas and the illegal and criminal acts that infringe on the personal rights of rural women and children." This was also stated in the 2020 document. At that time, the document said that it would severely crack down on illegal and criminal acts such as violating the personal rights of rural women and children.
It is worth mentioning that in recent years, the No. 1 document of the Central Committee has repeatedly focused on "improving the care and service system for left-behind children and women, the elderly and children in distress". This shows that the central government attaches great importance to the personal rights of women and children.
Personal rights are related to a series of issues such as women's life safety, survival safety, health safety, development security, freedom and equality, family harmony, stability and happiness, and economic and social development and spiritual civilization construction in countries and regions. Trafficking in women is a serious violation of women's personal rights.
Globally, more than 70 per cent of victims of trafficking are women, and on the mainland, this is dominated by rural women, especially in remote and underdeveloped areas.
It is not difficult to imagine that trafficked women have long suffered both physical and mental torture. This phenomenon still reflects the essence of gender inequality, and still shows the ideological remnants of women as a tool for sexuality and inheritance in the traditional gender culture regulation.
Combat violations of women's personal rights on a law-by-law basis
As early as 1992, the Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests set up a special chapter on women's personal rights and explicitly stated that it is necessary to guarantee women's personal freedom from infringement, prohibit illegal detention and other illegal means to deprive or restrict women's personal freedom; guarantee women's right to life and health from being violated, prohibit drowning, abandonment and maiming of female infants; prohibit discrimination and abuse of women of all ages in various forms; prohibit abduction, kidnapping and bribery of abducted and kidnapped women, and prohibit obstruct the rescue of abducted and kidnapped women, No one may discriminate against women who have been trafficked or kidnapped.
The Outline for the Development of Chinese Women (2021-2030) and the Action Plan against Human Trafficking in China (2021-2030) also require the improvement of a long-term mechanism for anti-trafficking work that integrates prevention, crackdown, rescue, resettlement and rehabilitation.
The above-mentioned regulations and documents clearly define women's personal rights, become the basic criterion for protecting women's rights, and lay the legal guarantee for creating a safe environment for women's personal rights.
Therefore, to protect the personal rights of rural women, it is necessary to take the law as the basis, effectively implement the Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests and other relevant laws and regulations, and severely crack down on acts that infringe on women's personal rights.
▲From 2011 to 2016, the number of cases of abduction and trafficking of women and children concluded by courts across the country showed a downward trend. Photo/Beijing News mapping
Use heavy codes to solve the problem of "group defense complicity" in small communities
Specifically, special actions should be carried out to investigate cases of abduction and trafficking of women, and the problem of "mass prevention and accomplice" in small communities should be solved with heavy codes.
First of all, we should promote the establishment of a database of missing women and carry out special operations to investigate the abduction and trafficking of women on a regular basis.
Using census data, the elderly unmarried men were thoroughly surveyed, and key areas were focused on inventory: such as areas where cases of abduction and trafficking of women had occurred in history, areas with a serious imbalance in the ratio of birth sex for a long time, and border and poor areas for the elderly, young and old, to find out the chain of crimes in the upstream and downstream of abducting and trafficking in women, and to prevent, detect and deal with them as early as possible.
Second, we must resolutely and continuously crack down on criminal and evil forces in various localities, continuously eliminate the erosion and influence of criminal and evil forces and feudal forces of family clans and clans on the social atmosphere, and at the same time increase the accountability of grass-roots cadres in areas where cases of abduction and trafficking of women occur.
Grassroots cadres should know the law, understand the law, respect the law and obey the law, and persuade the people to abide by the law, but cases of infringement of women's personal rights still occur from time to time, and in some places, they even "cannot splash water and insert needles." Only because the villages are "acquaintance societies", they have formed a community of interests, and the women who are trafficked are regarded as "special private property".
If grassroots cadres "open their eyes and close their eyes" and acquiesce in the villagers' obstruction of the abducted women's rescue operation, they will only tolerate and condone the criminal behavior of women's trade.
Therefore, on the basis of strictly holding grass-roots cadres accountable, we should also strictly implement the sanctions imposed by the mainland law on obstructing the rescue of bribed women and children by acts of violence, threats, and other acts.
▲ Some defendants involved in abduction cases have committed other crimes at the same time. Photo/Beijing News mapping
Safeguarding women's personal rights requires a combination of prevention and treatment
In addition to intensifying efforts to punish all kinds of violations of women's personal rights, the problem of violations of women's personal rights left over from history cannot be ignored. To protect the personal rights of rural women, it is even more necessary to combine prevention and control, and constantly strengthen the construction of public opinion and policy support.
It can be seen that many of the current cases of trafficking in women and violations of women's rights are problems left over from history. However, no matter what the reason, it is necessary to crack down buying and selling and properly handle the incidents that have already occurred.
At the same time, it is necessary to continuously improve the rescue and resettlement mechanism for abducted women, protect their basic rights and their children, and avoid secondary harm.
In addition, the idea of son preference in the past has led to more men than women on the mainland for a long time. In 2020, there were 34.9 million more men than women on the mainland. Considering the fact that women generally live longer than men, the proportion of men in the middle and young stages will be higher. This means that some men of marriage age are difficult to marry, which is an objective fact that should not be ignored or ignored.
This is also the sex ratio of continental births (that is, the number of male babies corresponding to 100 female babies) in the past 40 years. The normal range is 100:102-107) the result of long-term high accumulation, the highest year birth of male babies more than 20% more than female babies, still on the high side.
Coupled with the current "female up, male down" marriage model, the marriage market is "excessive" for men and women are "deficit", making the marriage squeeze problem of men with lower economic and social status more serious, which undoubtedly hides the serious hidden danger of abducting and trafficking women.
In this regard, we must make a good plan in advance to prevent problems before they occur, so as to prevent individual behavior from bringing serious social radiation effects and causing major social problems and social incidents.
Solve the problem of social security for older unmarried men in rural areas
In addition, the relevant departments should still intensify publicity on cracking down on the illegal and criminal acts of abducting and trafficking in women.
With the basic popularization of television and mobile phones, through the mainstream media and with the help of relevant platforms, strengthen publicity on women's personal rights, and publicize laws and regulations on cracking down on illegal and criminal acts of abducting and trafficking in women.
For older unmarried men in rural areas, on the one hand, grass-roots social governance must face such difficulties and pain points, take multiple measures at the same time, and help solve their marriage problems, such as grass-roots organizations playing a role in promoting practical measures such as opposing sky-high dowries, opening up marriage channels, and reducing the burden of marriage.
On the other hand, due to the long-term imbalance in the sex ratio at birth and the marriage of women in underdeveloped areas in the process of urbanization, there are more men and fewer women in some areas, which will inevitably make it impossible for some men to enter the marriage hall. For those who will not be able to get married in the end, we must effectively solve their social security problems.
Through legal advocacy and policy care, it is a top priority to create a social environment that is more conducive to the personal safety of rural women. In this way, it may also help to solve the problems of early marriage and early childbearing, extramarital sex, the rapid rise in divorce rates, and the abduction and trafficking of women and children in some rural areas.
Contributing Writer | Yang Juhua (Professor, School of Ethnology and Sociology, Minzu University of China)
Edit | Xu Qiuying
Intern | Velyuil
Proofreading | Wu Xingfa