CHRD Submits Follow-up Report to Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women
Comments Off on CHRD Submits Follow-up Report to Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women
Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD)
Follow-Up Report Submitted to
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
Civil Society Assessment of China’s Implementation of Recommendations in
Concluding Observations (CEDAW/C/CHN/CO/9) on the ninth periodic report of China
Submission Date: May 1, 2025
In its May 2023 concluding observations of the ninth periodic report of China, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women asked the government for information on progress towards fulfilling four recommendations. Those recommendations were meant to have been fulfilled by May 2025. CHRD’s analysis of Beijing’s efforts follows below, finding little to suggest the authorities are complying with its obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
(I) Para. 12(A). Ensure that the provisions of the Convention are fully integrated into the national legal system, including by amending or repealing legislative provisions that are incompatible with the principles of equality and non‑discrimination and make the Convention a reference in the definition and implementation of the 2030 Agenda, as well as in the international cooperation strategy of the State;
CHRD assessed that the Chinese government has not implemented this recommendation. The provisions of the Convention are not fully integrated with the national legal system. Discriminatory legislation has yet to be amended or repealed. For example, the Labor Law (articles 13 and 59) and Special Provisions for the Work Protection of Female Employees (article 4) continue to prohibit women from undertaking some types of jobs.[1] Other laws still contain discriminatory provisions on the basis of gender, ethnicity and rural or urban residency.[2] The Civil Code introduced in 2021 still requires a 30-day “cooling off” period for divorce, and the draft regulations on marriage registration released in August 2024 make it harder for couples to divorce by including the 30-day “cooling off” period provision.[3] Both pieces of legislation permit either party to withdraw from the divorce application during the “cooling off” period without the consent of the other party, which puts victims of domestic abuse at risk.[4] LGBTQI+ individuals remain excluded from all legislation on non-discrimination and equality.
Months after the Committee issued its Concluding Observations, in September 2023, the government released “China’s Progress Report on Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2023).” [5] It made no reference to the Convention despite the Committee’s recommendation. CHRD has found no evidence of the government referencing the Convention in international cooperation exchanges.
(II) Para. 36 (C). Create an enabling environment for women human rights defenders from diverse communities to promote, protect and advocate for women’s human rights without fear of reprisals.
CHRD assessed that this recommendation has not been implemented. Women human rights defenders (WHRDs) continue to face gender-based violence from police, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture, and online abuse. CHRD was unable to document instances of the state providing legal remedies to WHRDs subjected to violations of their human rights, but rather found that authorities would punish the WHRD’s lawyers for raising the alarm about torture and mistreatment in detention.
CHRD documented in a new report published in March 2025 that women are overrepresented as prisoners of conscience (PoC)[6] in China. Despite making up 48 percent of the population, women account for nearly 60 percent of all PoCs that CHRD has documented.[7] CHRD also found that two-thirds of imprisoned older prisoners of conscience (those over the age of 60) are also women, despite international standards that recommend states refrain from holding older prisoners in places of deprivation of liberty because the risk to their mental and physical integrity.[8]
Women HRDs continue to face police violence, despite recommendations from the Committee. One female Falun Gong practitioner was subjected to enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, torture, and denial of her fair trial rights to punish her religious practice, but as a woman PoC, she also faced gender-based violence.[9] She was put on trial in June 2023 and sentenced to five years in prison. While in pre-trial detention in June-July 2022, she was held in an extrajudicial temporary detention cell or “black jail,” where police tortured her, including sexually assaulting her. In August 2022, her lawyer filed complaints with judicial authorities and the state-run All-China’s Women’s Federation, but the complaints were ignored. Authorities claimed that her lawyer had exposed information to overseas websites about her mistreatment in custody, and then blocked the lawyer from representing her in court. No officials responsible for her treatment are known to have been investigated.
In March 2024, WHRD Xu Qin was convicted of “inciting subversion of state power” and sentenced to four years in prison.[10] She had been in police custody since 2021, and in July 2022, her lawyer discovered that Xu had become paralyzed while in custody and was in poor physical health. After the news of her paralysis became public, detention center authorities denied the lawyer permission to visit her and threatened her lawyer and her family with detention if they spoke out. In a response to Special Procedures, authorities denied that she had been tortured, but provided no evidence that an investigation had been conducted into Xu’s treatment in custody.[11]
CHRD received information from two WHRDs after they were released from prison at the end of prison sentences imposed in violation of their rights in late 2023 and early 2025, respectively. Since their releases, they have faced 24-hour police surveillance of their homes which has restricted their freedom of movement and freedom of expression. These restrictions are extrajudicial state measures to restrict these WHRDs from promoting, protecting and advocating for women’s human rights.
During China’s Fourth Universal Periodic Review in January 2024, the Marshall Islands recommended that the Chinese government, “Implement the concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recommending to immediately stop reprisals against human rights defenders, journalists and individuals belonging to minority groups.”[12] The Chinese government rejected the recommendation, claiming that it was “based on false information” and that “China will implement the recommendations of U.N. treaty bodies in accordance with its national conditions, and opposes the recommendations that are based on false information.”[13]
Following the Committee’s Concluding Observations, the Chinese government was named in the 2023 and 2024 reprisals report from the UN Secretary-General for perpetrating reprisals against HRDs. In both reports, the number of WHRDs targeted with reprisals was higher than male HRDs and the Secretary-General noted instances in both years of the government using gender-based threats as a tactic of intimidation for cooperating with the UN.[14]
(III) Para. 42(D). Raise the retirement age of women to be equal to that of men, with a view to increasing pension benefits and addressing old-age poverty of women.
CHRD assessed that this recommendation has not been implemented. In September 2024, China’s legislature adopted the Decision on Gradually Raising the Statutory Retirement Ages, which increased the retirement age starting in January 2025, with gradual implementation over 15 years. This was the government’s first reform of the retirement age since the 1950s. Yet despite this legislation being adopted over a year after the Committee issued its recommendation in its Concluding Observations, Chinese authorities maintained discriminatory ages for women and men which contribute to gender-based income inequality, lower equal benefits, and increased risk of poverty for older women. For all men the retirement age was raised from 60 to 63. For women it was increased from 50 to 55 (or from 55 to 58 for certain female cadres).[15]
(IV) Para. 70 (A). [Hong Kong] Urgently submit to the parliament for adoption draft legislation on sexual offences that incorporates a definition of rape, which is based on lack of consent, covers any non-consensual sexual act and takes into account all coercive circumstances, in line with international human rights standards.
CHRD assessed that this recommendation has not been implemented. Since the Committee adopted the Concluding Observations, Hong Kong’s government has not proposed draft legislation that includes a definition of rape in line with international standards. In March 2024, when amending the Crimes Ordinance following the adopting of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, no revisions were made to amend the definition of rape.[16]
[1] http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/englishnpc/Law/2007-12/12/content_1383754.htm; https://www.gov.cn/zwgk/2012-05/07/content_2131567.htm
[2] For example, Election Law of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China and Local People’s Congresses at All Levels; Organization Law of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China; Organization Law of Local People’s Congresses and Local People’s Governments at All Levels of the People’s Republic of China
[3] http://en.people.cn/n3/2024/0815/c90000-20205888.html; https://regional.chinadaily.com.cn/ordosen/en/2024-01/04/c_631651.htm
[4] https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2021/01/translation-the-first-woman-to-die-by-the-divorce-cooling-off-period/
[5] https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/zy/jj/2030kcxfzyc/202310/P020231018367257234614.pdf
[6] CHRD uses the term “prisoner of conscience” to refer to an individual who has been deprived of their liberty (detained, imprisoned, or forcibly disappeared) for peacefully exercising or defending human rights
[7] https://www.nchrd.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/CHRD_In-A-Prison-Waiting-for-Daybreak_full-report-1.pdf, p. 32
[8] https://www.nchrd.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/CHRD_In-A-Prison-Waiting-for-Daybreak_full-report-1.pdf, p. 37
[9] https://www.nchrd.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/CHRD_In-A-Prison-Waiting-for-Daybreak_full-report-1.pdf, p. 33
[10] https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=29124
[11] https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadFile?gId=38569
[12] https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/56/6, recommendation 22.387
[13] https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/56/6/Add.1, para. 45
[14] https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/54/61; https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/57/60