China Passes New Women’s Protection Law
On October 30, 2022, the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress, China’s top legislative body, passed the revised Law on the Protection of Women’s Rights and Interests (hereinafter referred to as the “Women’s Protection Law”). The amended Women’s Protection Law, which will take effect on January 1, 2023, added nearly 30 new provisions to enhance women’s protection in areas ranging from gender equality in recruitment and contract negotiation, employer’s obligation in sexual harassment prevention, as well as relief measures to women should their rights and interests being harmed.To get more news about To get more news about https://www.shine.cn/feature/a....rt-culture/220316316 woman in ancient china, you can visit shine news official website., you can visit shine news official website.
The exposure draft for the Women’s Protection Law amendment garnered more than 700,000 comments during the seeking opinion stage, making it the legislative document that was commented the most in recent years. The law was amended in 2005 and 2018, respectively, after being first enacted in 1992.
Given the urgency for businesses to comply with these amendments and the importance for them to develop formal processes to handle issues related to gender discrimination and harassment in the workplace, we discuss key considerations in the new Women’s Protection Law for employers.Despite the widespread condemnation of sexism, gender discrimination in China’s hiring practices is a common occurrence. The new Women’s Protection Law makes more effort to eliminate gender bias in the hiring process.
In addition, the new Women’s Protection Law incorporates gender discrimination in the workplace into the scope of labor security supervision. Should an employer violate gender-equality provisions, the human resource and social security authorities shall order it to make corrections. If the employer refuses to make corrections or the circumstances are serious, they shall be fined no less than RMB 10,000 but not more than RMB 50,000. Through this, the non-discrimination-related provisions in the new Women’s Protection Law are expected to be better implemented in practice.
Employers are suggested to double-check whether the above behaviors exist in their recruitment process and if so, make corresponding compliance adjustments according to the requirements of the new Women’s Protection Law.
The new Women’s Protection Law stipulates that “the employer shall not, due to marriage, pregnancy, maternity leave, breastfeeding, and other circumstances, reduce the wages and welfare benefits of female workers, restrict the promotion, promotion, evaluation, and employment of female workers of professional and technical titles and posts, dismiss female workers, unilaterally dissolve the labor (employment) contract or service agreement”.
The 2018 version of the Women’s Protection Law only stipulated that “the employer shall not, due to marriage, pregnancy, maternity leave, breastfeeding, and other circumstances, reduce the wages of female workers, dismiss female workers, and unilaterally dissolve the labor (employment) contract or service agreement”.
In comparison, the new Women’s Protection Law is a big step further toward protecting female employees’ birth rights and addressing gender equality in performance reviews and promotions.Chinese law specifically forbids sexual harassment in the workplace, and Article 1010 of the Civil Code stipulates that employers must take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment and provide appropriate channels of complaint.
The new Women’s Protection Law defines sexual harassment as the form of verbal remarks, written language, images, physical behaviors, or other actions against the will of women.
