On December 4, 2018, the National Constitution Day, the newspaper China Women’s News, interviewed a number of experts on the implementation of the constitutional principle of gender equality in China. Among the experts interviewed were Professor Mo Jihong, Director of CASS Institute of International Law, and Professor Liu Xiaomei, a research fellow at the CASS Institute of International Law. In the interviews, Professor Mo and Professor Liu answered such questions as how to understand the Constitution as the fundamental of the country, what is the relationship between the Constitution and each individual citizen, which articles in the Chinese Constitutional have provided for the gender equality, what are the significance of these provisions to the safeguarding of women’s rights and interests and, especially, how to implement the constitutional principle of gender equality in China.

Professor Liu Xiaomei pointed out that the principle of gender equality provided for in the 1949 Common Program, the 1954, 1975, 1978 and 1982 constitutions. In the current Constitution, the principle is mainly provided for in the following three articles: Article 33, which provides that: “All citizens of the People's Republic of China are equal before the law. The state respects and protects human rights. Every citizen is entitled to the rights and at the same time must perform the duties prescribed by the Constitution and the law”; Article 34, which provides that: “All citizens of the People's Republic of China who have reached the age of 18 have the right to vote and stand for election, regardless of ethnic status, race, sex, occupation, family background, religious belief, education, property status or length of residence, except persons deprived of political rights according to law”; and Article 48, which provides that: “Women in the People's Republic of China enjoy equal rights with men in all spheres of life, in political, economic, cultural, social and family life. The state protects the rights and interests of women, applies the principle of equal pay for equal work to men and women alike and trains and selects cadres from among women.”

“The principle of gender equality plays a very important role in the protection of women’s lawful rights and interests, especially women’s family rights, such as the freedom of marriage, the equal status of the husband and the wife in family, the prohibition of domestic violence, and the equal right to community property. The principle also affects the women’s right to political participation. Through various anti-discrimination measures, it ensures the representation of women in organs of public power and their equal status with men in political, economic, social and cultural life”, said Professor Mo Jihong.

Professor Liu Xiaomei told the reporter that, since the reform and the opening-up, especially since the Eighteenth Party Congress, China has made remarked achievements in implementing the principle of gender equality in every link of the construction of the rule of law and in safeguarding women’s rights and interests through the rule of law. One of the such achievements is the continuous increase of the percentage of women among deputies to the National People’s Congress and members of the national committee of CPPCC. Safeguarding women’s equal right of political participation is the basis of the realization of women’s equal rights in economic, cultural, social and family lives. The life and the authority of the constitution lies in its implementation. So is the constitutional principle of gender equality. It needs to be transformed from a principle on the paper to safeguards in reality, so as to enable women to truly exercise their democratic rights, participate in economic and social development, and enjoy the achievements of reform and opening-up on an equal basis with men.

Professor Mo Jihong believes that the key to the implementation of the principle of gender equality is institutional design. Necessary positive measures must be taken to eliminate various forms of discrimination against women, help women to effectively exercise their rights, and uphold their lawful rights and interests, especially the special rights and interests of girls and pregnant women. The implementation of gender equality must first of all start in the family, by ensuring the equal rights of women with men in the family, opposing all forms of gender discrimination, and fighting against domestic violence against women.

In the opinion of Professor Liu Xiaomei, currently the following steps should be taken by the Chinese government in order to implement the principle of gender equality: firstly, to increase the efforts in safeguarding the right to compulsory education of girls in remote, poverty-stricken and minority areas; secondly, to adopt relevant laws and policies to strengthen the protection of women’s equal right to employment against the background of the implementation of the two-child policy; and thirdly, to review village regulations and local customs and to abolish those that infringe women’s right to gender equality, especially those violating women’s economic, family and marriage rights.