United States Department of State

“ The labor law permits collective bargaining for workers in all types of enterprises; however, in practice collective bargaining fell far short of international standards. Under the law, collective contracts are to be developed through collaboration between the labor union and management and should specify such matters as working conditions, wage scales, and hours of work. In the private sector, where active labor unions were rare and alternative union organizations had no legal standing to negotiate, workers faced significant obstacles to bargaining collectively with management. ”

“ There was no national minimum wage, but the labor law requires local governments to set their own minimum wage according to standards promulgated by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. These standards include the minimum cost of living for workers and their families, levels of economic development, and employment in the area, as well as the level of social insurance and other benefits contributions paid by the employees themselves. Labor bureaus set these standards to cover basic needs. ”

“ Authorities often did not enforce laws protecting the rights of women. According to legal experts, it was difficult to litigate a sex discrimination suit because the vague legal definition made it difficult to quantify damages, so very few cases were brought to court. Some observers noted that the agencies tasked with protecting women's rights tended to focus on maternity-related benefits and wrongful termination during maternity leave rather than on sex discrimination, violence against women, and sexual harassment. ”

“ Although prostitution is legal, a "procurement" law makes it a crime to instigate, favor, or facilitate the practice of prostitution by another person for the purposes of profit or as a way of life, although the penalties for this lighter crime are less severe and the "procurement" crime does not recognize a victim. ”

“ All concerts, sports events, exercise classes, or other meetings of more than 200 persons require approval from public security authorities. Although peaceful protests are legal, in practice police rarely granted approval. Despite restrictions, during the year there were many demonstrations, but those with political or social themes were broken up quickly, sometimes with excessive force. Social inequalities and uneven economic development, combined with dissatisfaction over widespread official corruption, increased social unrest. ”

“ Equal opportunity legislation mandates that women receive equal pay for equal work; however, observers estimated that there was a significant difference in salary between men and women, particularly in unskilled jobs. The law allows for civil suits, but few women took their cases to the Labor Affairs Bureau or other entities. Discrimination in hiring practices based on gender or physical ability is prohibited by law, and penalties exist for employers who violate these guidelines. ”

“ Trafficking in Persons
The law prohibits trafficking in women and children for sexual exploitation; however, there were reports that men, women, and children were trafficked to, from, through, and within the country for sexual exploitation and forced labor. The government increased efforts to combat trafficking, including raising public awareness, expanding social services, and improving international cooperation. However, trafficking laws do not fully comply with international standards, and the definition of trafficking did not include forced labor or trafficking of men and boys ”

“ Many employers preferred to hire men to avoid the expense of maternity leave and childcare, and some lowered the effective retirement age for female workers to 40 (the official retirement age for men was 60 and for women 55, with the exception of men and women involved in physically demanding jobs for which the retirement age was 55 and 45, respectively) . In addition work units were allowed to impose an earlier mandatory retirement age for women than for men, which limited a woman's lifetime earning power and career span. ”

“ The lack of written labor contracts made it much more difficult for workers whose rights had been violated to seek redress through administrative processes or through the courts. The labor legislation that went into effect during the year aims to improve the regulation of labor contracting agencies and limit the conditions under which employers can use contingent or temporary labor; however, the widespread use of such workers continued to create legal gray areas that made labor law enforcement more difficult. ”

“ Many employers used an "extended shift" system, in which the employer set an unrealistic production target that workers could not achieve within designated work hours, forcing workers to work overtime without additional compensation to meet the target and sometimes resulting in actual hourly wages that were below the legal minimum wage. The illegal practice of collecting wage deposits or paying wages in arrears to prevent workers from quitting their jobs without the employer's consent remained a common problem. ”

“ While the national family planning authorities shifted their emphasis from lowering fertility rates to maintaining low fertility rates and emphasized quality of care in family planning practices, the country's birth limitation policies retained harshly coercive elements in law and practice. The penalties for violating the law are strict, leaving some women little choice but to abort pregnancies. ”

“ On August 12, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported that propaganda authorities had issued a 21-point directive outlining how the domestic media should handle certain stories during the Olympics. According to the directive, Chinese journalists were barred from reporting on the lifting of censorship of foreign Web sites during the Olympics, the private lives of visiting heads of state, and Tibetan and Uighur separatist movements, among other topics. The directive also ordered journalists to report positively on Olympic security arrangements. ”

“ Women's rights advocates indicated that in rural areas women often forfeited land and property rights to their husbands in divorce proceedings. In principle rural contract law and laws protecting women's rights stipulate that women enjoy equal rights in cases of land management, but experts argued that in practice, this was rarely the case due to the complexity of the law and difficulties in its implementation. ”

“ Local labor laws establish the general principle of fair wages and mandate compliance with wage agreements. There was no mandatory minimum wage except for government-outsourced security guards and cleaners. Average wages provided a decent standard of living for a worker and family.
In April representatives of employers, employees, and the government discussed a minimum wage scheme for all sectors. They concluded that a minimum wage imposed on all industries would be complex and difficult and a mandatory minimum wage would be implemented only after the community reaches a consensus. ”

“ The revised law on the protection of minors, which took effect in June 2007, prohibits trafficking, kidnapping, and sexual exploitation of minors. Persons convicted of forced prostitution, abduction, or commercial exploitation face criminal sanctions including fines, confiscation of personal property, life imprisonment, and, in extreme cases, the death penalty; convictions for trafficking minors carry heavier sentences. Victims and their families can also bring civil suits against offenders, but in practice few civil suits made it beyond initial stages. ”

“ Inadequate and poorly enforced occupational health and safety laws and regulations continued to put workers' health and lives at risk. The State Administration for Work Safety (SAWS) acknowledged that occupational health and safety concerns remained serious. The work safety law states that employees have the right, after spotting an emergency situation that threatens their personal safety, to evacuate the workplace. Employers are forbidden to cancel the labor contracts or reduce the wages or benefits of any employee who takes such action. ”

“ In order to delay childbearing, the law sets the minimum marriage age for women at 20 years and for men at 22 years. It continued to be illegal in almost all provinces for a single woman to have a child. In November 2007, Hunan Province adopted new penalties for children conceived out of wedlock, requiring violators to pay 6 to 8 percent of their income from the previous year, in addition to the standard social compensation fee. The law states that family planning bureaus will conduct pregnancy tests on married women and provide them with unspecified "follow-up" services. ”

“ Other jurisdictions continued to treat worker protests as illegal demonstrations. Without a clearly defined right to strike, workers had only a limited capacity to influence the negotiation process.
In some cases workers did strike to demand better conditions and benefits. During the year labor strikes and protests throughout the country became increasingly widespread and well organized. In January in Guangzhou and Dongguan in Guangdong Province, thousands of workers from Hong Kong and Taiwan-invested factories protested wage arrears and other grievances. ”

“ Female infanticide, sex-selective abortions, and the abandonment and neglect of baby girls remained problems due to the traditional preference for sons and the coercive birth limitation policy. Female babies also suffered from a higher mortality rate than male babies, contrary to the worldwide norm. State media reported that infant mortality rates in rural areas were 27 percent higher for girls than boys and that neglect was one factor in their lower survival rate. ”

“ These economic migrants lacked official residence status in cities, and it was difficult for them to gain full access to social services, including education, despite laws, regulations, and programs meant to address their needs. Furthermore, law and society generally limited migrant workers to types of work considered least desirable by local residents, and such workers had little recourse when subject to abuse by employers and officials. ”

“ While the law treats men and women equally in terms of property rights in divorce settlements and inheritance matters, in practice women faced discrimination in employment, salary, welfare, inheritance, and promotion. Women reportedly formed the majority of the working poor and those who fall outside the protection of labor laws. ”

“ Linking job promotion with an official's ability to meet or exceed such targets provided a powerful structural incentive for officials to employ coercive measures to meet population goals. In an effort to meet local sterilization targets, officials in Gansu Province, who were often promised a promotion and a monetary reward, reportedly forcibly detained and sterilized a Tibetan woman who had abided by local population planning requirements. There continued to be sporadic reports of violations of citizens' rights by local officials attempting to reduce the number of births in their region. ”

“ Wage arrears remained a common problem, especially among migrant workers. Some migrant workers received wages once a year, when settling with employers prior to returning home for the lunar New Year. Governments at various levels continued their efforts to prevent arrears to recover payment of missing wages and insurance contributions. Legal aid lawyers and government sources reported that nonpayment or underpayment of wages still accounted for a large portion of labor disputes. ”

“ Defendants enjoy a presumption of innocence except in official corruption cases. Under the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance, a current or former government official who maintains a standard of living above that commensurate with his official income, or who controls monies or property disproportionate to his official income, is guilty of an offense unless he can satisfactorily explain the discrepancy. ”

“ The law provides for the right to organize, and this right was implemented in practice; however, it does not guarantee the right to collective bargaining. The 1997 Employment and Labor Relations (Miscellaneous Amendments) Ordinance does not provide a legal framework for trade unions to engage employers in collective bargaining. In all but a few specific trades, unions were not powerful enough to force management to engage in collective bargaining. The government did not engage in collective bargaining with civil servants' unions. ”

“ Government statistics showed that almost one-quarter of persons with disabilities lived in extreme poverty. Unemployment among adults with disabilities remained a serious problem. Under the Employment Promotion Law, local governments were required to offer incentives to enterprises that hired persons with disabilities. Existing regulations in some parts of the country also required employers to pay into a national fund for the disabled when the employees with disabilities did not make up the statutory minimum percentage of the total workforce. ”

“ The lack of access to UNHCR-supported durable solutions and options, as well as constant fear of forced repatriation by authorities, left North Korean refugees vulnerable to human traffickers. Even refugees under UNCHR care were subjected to harassment and restrictions by authorities.
Although the government maintained restrictions on the freedom to change one's workplace or residence, the national household registration system (hukou) continued to change, and the ability of most citizens to move within the country to work and live continued to expand. ”

“ Most prostitutes in the TAR were ethnic Han women, predominantly from Sichuan Province. However, some ethnic Tibetans, mainly young girls from rural or nomadic areas, also engaged in prostitution. While the incidence of HIV/AIDS among those in prostitution in Tibetan areas was unknown, the TAR Health Bureau reported 56 cases of HIV/AIDS in the TAR between 1994 and 2007. Lack of knowledge about HIV transmission and economic pressures on women and girls in prostitution to engage in unprotected sex made them particularly vulnerable. ”

“ Lawyers explained that there were very few cases of disputes regarding alleged discrimination, as such allegations were difficult to prove.
The UN Economic and Social Council reported that less than 2 percent of women between the ages of 15 and 24 were illiterate. According to 2008 official government statistics, women comprised more than 70 percent of all illiterate persons above the age of 15. In some underdeveloped regions, the female literacy rate lagged behind the male literacy rate by 15 percent or more. ”

“ The mass detentions connected with the March unrest amplified already crowded and harsh prison conditions. Some prisons used forced labor, including those in the public security reeducation through labor system (RTL) , detention centers, and prison work sites. The law states that prisoners may be required to work up to 12 hours per day, with one rest day every two weeks, but these regulations often were not enforced. ”

“ Although 95 percent ethnic Chinese, Hong Kong is a multiethnic society with persons from a number of ethnic groups recognized as citizens or legal permanent residents of the SAR. Discrimination based on race is prohibited by law, and the EOC oversees implementation and enforcement of the Race Discrimination Ordinance passed during the year. The Race Relations Unit, which is subordinate to the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau, served as secretariat to the Committee on the Promotion of Racial Harmony and implemented the committee's programs. ”