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If you are given a fruit, you can enjoy it only once;
If you are given a seed, you can benefit from it your whole life. |
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Take Action Now to Help Poor Rural Women
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Rural Women Needs Your Concern and Help for Development
According to the Platform for Action adopted at the UN's 4 th World Conference on Women in 1995, more than 1 billion people in the world live in extreme poverty, the majority of which are women in developing countries. During the last ten years, there has been a much higher increase in the number of women living in poverty than that of men, particularly in developing counties.
Since its opening up and reforms, China 's economy has grown rapidly and Chinese people's living standards have been greatly improved. However, as the society undergoes economic transition, the income gap widened and a poverty-stricken population emerged. Poverty is a most serious problem for farmers, women in particular. The increasing number of women living in poverty has become a grave social problem in China . Various factors contribute to rural women's poverty. In addition to their economic situation, Chinese rural women's basic rights for education, training, and other resources are also deprived by unequal gender status.
1. Rural women's access to education is very limited . Currently, there are 85 million illiterate people in China , and rural women constitute 70 percent. These women cannot write their own names or read simple letters. They do not know how to do basic calculation, keep accounts, and make plans for daily work. Neither can they effectively help their children's school work. Some do not even have the courage to leave their home villages. Lack of education and self-confidence hinders their development in all aspects. |
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 Attending classes with their children is a typical scene in the adult rural women's literacy program. Children are the continuation of and source of expectation and hope for mothers. Many mothers' biggest wish is that their children are not illiterate like them, and one of their main goals is to make sure that they can read and write.
(Shot in Zhangxian in 2002.) |
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Not having been to school for a single day, these women cannot write their own nam es or do accounts. Many of them know nothing about the world outside of the village. They work all year round, but get less than 600 yuan of annual income. They are eager to learn how to read and write, so that they can be confident enough to work outside the village and do business. They hope they can live a better life and go out of their village to see the world. (Shot in Anmen Village , Zhangxian , Gansu in Nov. 2004) |
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In the village, because of difficult transportation, i naccessibility of information and influence of traditional concepts, women are men's appendages. Giving birth to children and raising them, washing and cooking, taking care of their family members and working in the fields are all they do in their life. Change of life starts with becoming literate. When these women realized the importance of literacy, it becomes normal that mother-in-law and daughter-in-law attending the class together (Shot in Dongxiaosi, Weizhou, Ningxia in March 2006). |
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 They are women in mountain areas and they have suffered for their illiteracy. With babies on their back and ignoring the saying that “only licentious women learn to read and write,” they come to attend the literacy class. Some of them have to walk more than two hours to the class. They regard this kind of hardship as nothing compared to the hardship of being illiterate. (Shot in Moyang Village , Luodian County , Guizhou Province in April, 2005) |
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| 2. Many migrant women's legal rights have been infringed . Along with the country's economic development and the income gap between rural and urban areas, a great number of farmers go to cities for job opportunities. Making contributions to the city's economic development, the migrant workers' legal rights are not well protected, especially for women. Our Migrant Women's Club often receives migrant women who come to seek help. Some of them have been fired or their wages docked for no reason, some live in very poor conditions, some have been maltreated or physically abused by their employers for a long time, and some have been sexually harassed or raped…. When they are maltreated both mentally and physically, penniless and homeless, they are badly in need of medical treatment, legal or mental counseling and shelter for emergent cases. |
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 The beautiful girl in yellow in the middle is one of the women that Migrant Women's Club has offered emergency relief to. She came to Beijing at the age of 15 to look after a child in a family. Within about one year, she was beaten almost everyday by her hostess and was confined in her movements. The Migrant Women's Club offered her emergency relief and legislative support. Now, after participating in the Club's training and activities, she has become employed at a domestic services school. |
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 The 19-year-old migrant woman was pregnant after having been raped. She lacked money for an abortion, so she was going to kill the baby after giving birth to it. With help from the Migrant Women's Club, she changed her mind and regained the courage to live on. Xie Lihua, who first started the Club, visits her. |
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 The young woman in the middle also received support from the Migrant Women's Club. She comes from Shandong Province and was seriously hurt after falling off the fifth floor of a building while cleaning windows. The cleaning service company she worked for was indifferent to her situation. It was the Migrant Women's Club that extended a helping hand to her when she and her family felt helpless, and helped her to get justice through a legal procedure. After winning the lawsuit, she became a member of the Club. Now, she can not only give performance happily with other members but also talk to new members about how to protect their legal rights. |
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| 3. Poor rural women generally cannot re-enter education after graduating from junior high school. In rural areas, especially in the poverty-stricken western regions, the majority of young women lack opportunities to continue their studies after the nine years of compulsive education, because of limited economic opportunities and of the influence of traditional unequal gender concepts. |
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| Born in Linshui County , Sichuan Province in 1988, Liu Qing became an orphan at the age of five. Having dropped out of school twice, she began to work outside village when she was only 15. In 2004, she had the opportunity to learn computer skills for a year at the Practical Skills Training Center for Rural Women and worked in Li'anda Group Co. in Jiangyin , Jiangsu Province after passing the 4 th grade national examination for high-tech computer skills. |
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 Liu Qing with her grandparents .
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 Liu Qing in Li'anda Group Company in Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province, where she has worked. |
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Liu was born in Zhangxian Country , Gansu Province in 1985. Her father died when she was only 12, leaving his  wife with aged parents and four kids. Her mother was the only family support and lived a very hard life. Liu Xiaomei dropped out after she finished only one year at junior high school. Luckily, she had the opportunity to learn computer skills at the PSTCRW for a year and found employment at a company in Beijing . Now she can operate use computers for drawing.
Liu Xiaomei with Luo Zhaohong, director of the PSCRW, in front of her house. |
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 When Elaine L. Chao, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor visited the training school in June 2004, she was selected to demonstrate the computer skills the students had learned. |
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Born from a Yi family in Ebian County , Sichuan in 1987, Lu Xiaoying dropped out during her second year of junior high school because of her mother's poor health. She came to the training school to study computer skills with the support of the Grant-Aid Fund and graduated with excellent results. Being hardworking and earnest, she has been employed as manager of purchasing and storage in a restaurant. She can now skillfully use a computer in her work.
Lu Xiaoying (1 st left) with her workmates in front of the restaurant she works. |
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