'Mother Care Express Buses' Launched
A ceremony to launch the "Mother Care Express Buses" project was held on July 12, 2003 in Tian'anmen Square. Two hundred buses, with equipment and medicine, were sent to Shaanxi and Guizhou provinces to provide mothers in China's western, poverty-stricken areas with medical services.
The program was initiated by China Women's Development Foundation and supported by local women's federations and hospitals and clinics. The initiative's purpose is to provide health care--including lectures, training and reference materials--to women in those regions.

'Keeping My Family Without Drugs' Successful
The All-China Women's Federation and the China National Narcotics Control Commission initiated the "Keeping My Family Without Drugs" project on June 26, 2000 to mark International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. The project was recognized by all circles of society, and resulted in rewarding experiences and rich accomplishments.
The project focused on families and communities--especially those with drug addicts. To promote the project, the ACWF and the CNNCC held an on-the-spot meeting in Nanjing in 2001, and worked with 103 counties, cities and banners from 13 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government. In 2002, an experience-exchange meeting, involving 16 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government, was held in Beijing. In April 2003, the ACWF and the CNNCC sent teams to Guangxi, Yunnan and Sichuan to conduct various investigations and tests.
For three years, the ACWF encouraged women to participate in the drug-eradication project, and helped form a system, which involved that government, society and families combated drug use. The efforts improved people's drug awareness, and the percentage of drug users fell.

Green Life, Green Families
To mark World Environment Day, the ACWF and State Environmental Protection Administration released a proposal, "Everyone Takes Action and Creates Green Families," among 340 million families across China.
The proposal urged families to consider thriftiness as honorable, save energy and water, protect the resources, use green products, learn to recognize and prevent various types of chemical pollution, recycle items, purchase fewer disposable products, resist white pollution, form good hygiene habits, emphasize health, cherish life, and teach children to be friends of the environment.
The proposal's release marked the beginning of a two-year initiative involving numerous activities. Focusing on the theme "advocate green life, create green families," the activities include green family reading programs, green family trivia contests, presentations of scientific ways to live in communities and appraisals of green families.

Beijing People's Congress Discusses Sexual Harassment Legislation
The Standing Committee of the Beijing People's Congress met on June 18, 2003 to discuss the draft of proposed legislation for 2003 through 2007. During the discussion, legislators suggested that sexual harassment legislation should be made to protect women against sexual harassment.
The Standing Committee of the Beijing People's Congress issued "Beijing's Measures to Carry Out the Law of the PRC on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Women" on May 21, 1994. The measures outlined women's rights in numerous situations, but failed to address sexual harassment.

Court Established to Safeguard Women Workers' Rights
Beijing recently created its first court to safeguard women workers' rights and interests. The court specializes in cases involving labor-protection issues specific to women.
The Labor Law of the PRC guarantees women workers' certain rights given their special physical characteristics. Complaints involving violations of these rights will be dealt with by this court. Staff of women's federations and trade unions will serve as adjudicators with professional arbitrators. The court will decided within three days of receiving a complaint if it will hear the case. If so, a trial will be held within 10 days of the defendant's reply. The judge will issue a verdict within 10 days of the trial's conclusion.

Studying Legal Services to Women Produces Effects in Hebei
The Hebei Women's Federation studied the contents, organizational model and operational system of legal services to women over the past several years. Now it has produced effects. Currently, there is one provincial-level women's legal service center and 11 city-level centers in Hebei Province. Seventy-eight percent of women's federations at the county, district or city level have established a combined 135 such centers. About 90 percent of townships and neighborhoods have established 1,969 complaint stations for women. And here are 33,000 women's case workers assigned by village committees or residents' committees.

Local Regulation Will Curb Domestic Violence in Heilongjiang
The Heilongjiang People's Congress reached an agreement on June 18, 2003 while deliberating the "Report on the Curbing and Prevention of Domestic Violence." It was decided that public security organs in Heilongjiang should deal with the phone calls from domestic-violence victims.
A proposed local regulation stipulates that State organizations, non-governmental organizations, enterprises and institutions, and grass-roots organizations have a duty to prevent and curb domestic violence within their units, departments or areas. They should not shake off or shift their responsibilities. Preventing and curbing domestic violence should be included in public security work, and domestic-violence complaints should be dealt with according to the Public Security Punishment Regulations, the Criminal Law of the PRC and the Criminal Procedure Law of the PRC. Regarding domestic-violence-related divorces, the victims can ask for compensation.

Rights Protection Coordinating Team Established in Jilin
Eighteen units of Jilin Province--including departments of political and legislative affairs, public security, justice, education, civil affairs, labor and social security, culture, health, and women's federation--established on June 18, 2003 a coordinating team to protect children and women's rights and interests.
The team's main tasks are to gather and share experiences involved with protecting children and women's rights and interests; discuss and resolve problems arising from protecting the rights and interests; help to deal with the typical cases; promote the establishment, perfection and implementation of laws and regulations to protect the rights and interests; and award outstanding groups or individuals who have made great contributions in protecting the rights and interests.

Xi'an Creates 'Zero Domestic Violence Community'
The program "Zero Domestic Violence Community" was launched on June 20, 2003 in Beilin District of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. The program aims at mediating family disputes to result in fewer incidents of domestic violence. It also calls on various organizations, responsible for protecting people's rights and interests, to help eradicate domestic violence.
Officials in Beilin District have drafted a five-year plan that includes the creation of "Zero Domestic Violence Communities" and the establishment of a rights-protection system. The plan's goal is to transform 85 percent of the district's communities into "Zero Domestic Violence Communities."

Learning Activity Unfolds Among Shanghai Women
In the past five years, the Shanghai Women's Federation has carried out among women a learning activity--"go to school and get wired for the future." Some 300,000 women workers in Shanghai, as part of the initiative, attended schools on weekends to upgrade their skills and to increase their knowledge. One million women workers learned how to access the Internet and long-distance education programs for women were offered over the Internet in all of districts and counties and part of townships. Each year, 300,000 women farmers received training in agricultural skills, more than half of them earned between one and four professional certificates.
The program "a million families get on the Internet," initiated by the federation, has been listed by the Shanghai Municipal Government as a key program in 2003. Over the next five years, all women in Shanghai will receive basic information technology training.

Rural Women Benefit from 'Double Learning and Double Emulation'
Income of farmers in Heilongjiang Province increased 5.8 percent in 2002, which set a record. The campaign "double learning and double emulation," conducted by women's federations, to help rural women improve their skills, was a contributing factor.
Women's federations at various levels in Heilongjiang focused on initiatives that encouraged rural women to contribute to rural industries' structural adjustments by developing special agricultural skills. For example, they organized animal husbandry contests for rural women, which made it possible for nearly 70 percent of the women to participate in livestock husbandry programs. As a result, the industrial structure was transformed from traditional planting to husbandry. Establishment of the "three areas"--the science and technology pilot area, green food area and the export and foreign-exchange creation area--in Mudanjiang involved 150,000 rural women organized by the local women's federation.
Women's federations at various levels helped strengthen rural women's awareness of the environment and focused on the development, production, processing and sales of organically grown foods and special foods. Numerous pilot areas, based on science and high-technology, developed well and posted profits. For example, the Harbin Women's Federation established a 72,000-square-meter agricultural development pilot area for women.
In 2002, Heilongjiang's first information website that provided rural women with agricultural-production information was established by the Provincial Women's Federation.
At present, Heilongjiang has 8,349 "double learning and double emulation" bases, and 929,900 rural women have received training there. The bases have helped 1.44 million women become employable, and helped create 913 million yuan in profits.

Women's Employment in Jiangsu Improving
By the end of 2002, the number of women business owners in Jiangsu Province reached 125,000, and the number of women bosses in privately owned enterprises reached 23,000. That means about 10 percent of owners or managers of private businesses and enterprises in Jiangsu were women.
In recent years, the number of excellent women entrepreneurs, whose enterprises created annual production values exceeding 100 million yuan and paid annual taxes above one million yuan, increased. Their businesses involved traditional industries-- including catering, dyeing and textiles--and new sectors, such as education, real estate and new- and high-technology. Statistics indicate a mere two percent of women's businesses had suffered losses.
In the past three years, enterprises in Nanjing led by women absorbed more than 60 percent of the laid-off workers. Businesses are able to create jobs, and women not only developed their own businesses and made profits, but also helped government and society relieve unemployment pressure.