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I. Guarantee of Children's Rights
and Interests

Children are the future and hope of mankind. Today's children will be
masters of the 21st century. Children's survival, protection and
development, which are the basis for improving the quality of the
population and the prerequisite conditions for the advance of mankind,
directly concern a country and a nation's future and destiny. The Chinese
nation has long cultivated the traditional virtues of ``bringing along
the young'' and ``loving the young.'' An old saying, ``Love our own and
others' children,'' is still very popular. The Chinese Government, with
an earnest and responsible attitude, always shows great concern for
children's survival, protection and development. It regards ``the
education of children to improve the quality of the whole people'' as a
fundamental policy for its socialist modernization program. The
government educates society at large to ``protect and educate children,
and set an example and do practical things for children.'' It spares no
effort to create favorable social conditions for the progress of
children's programs. Since the initiation of reform and opening to the
outside world, children's programs in China have moved into social,
scientific and legal tracks; and children's programs have become an
important component part of the nation's construction and the duties of
the whole society.

Children's Programs for the 21st Century

On February 16, 1992, the Chinese Government formally promulgated the
Outline of the Program for Chinese Children's Development in the 1990s.
The formulation of this program fully displays the Chinese Government's
earnest and responsible attitude toward, and its concern for, the work
impacting children. In accordance with the tasks and general objectives
proposed by the Ten-Year Program for China's National Economic and Social
Development and the Eighth Five-Year Plan (1991-95), the spirit of the
two documents adopted by the Summit Conference on the Issue of World
Children, as well as China's actual children's programs, the Outline,
having the world, the future and China's modernization program in view,
puts forward ten main objectives and tactics and measures for realizing
these objectives. It states that the mortality rate of infants and that
of children under five in 1990 will both be reduced by one third, and
that disease occurrence in children under five caused by moderate and
severe malnutrition will drop by 50 percent in 2000. All of the 30
provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the
central government in China have worked out development programs for
children in light of the Outline and their respective local conditions.
The measures and work for implementing the Outline are carried out in a
down-to-earth and effective way throughout the country.

Protection Through Legislation

For many years, China has striven to protect children's legitimate rights
and interests through legislation, endeavoring to place such protection
on a legal and normal footing. In accordance with the actual conditions
in China and by reference to relative legislation in other countries,
especially to the laws and international documents on the protection of
children's rights and interests, China has worked out a series of laws
concerning children's survival, protection and development. With the
Constitution of the People's Republic of China as the core, these
provisions include the Criminal Law, the General Principles of Civil Law,
the Marriage Law, the Education Law, the Compulsory Education Law, the
Law on the Protection of Disabled Persons, the Law on the Protection of
Juveniles, the Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests, the
Law on Health Protection of Mothers and Infants, the Law on the
Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases, and the Law on Adoption,
in addition to a great number of other relevant regulations and measures.
Hence a fairly complete legal system for the protection of children's
rights and interests has been formed.

The Constitution of China clearly specifies: ``The state promotes the
all-round moral, intellectual and physical development of children and
young people,'' ``... child are protected by the state,'' and
``maltreatment of ... children is prohibited.'' Formulated according to
the Constitution, China's relevant laws include comprehensive and
systematic provisions on children's right to life, survival and
development, as well as basic health and health care. Provisions also
address children's family environment and substitutional care, education,
free time and cultural activities and the special protection of disabled
children. It is specified that criminal acts, such as maltreating,
abandoning and deliberately killing children, as well as stealing,
abducting and trafficking, kidnaping, selling and buying in children,
should be severely punished. In addition, China's Constitution, laws and
relevant administrative legislation also include comparatively complete
provisions on the government's functions, the society's participation,
work principles and corresponding legal responsibilities in the
protection of children's rights and interests. From these it can be
clearly seen that China's legal framework for the protection of
children's rights and interests and its social guarantee mechanisms are
effective in practice.

Judicial Protection

China's judicial procedure attaches great importance to the protection of
juveniles' legal rights and interests, on which there are many important
laws containing special provisions. To the juveniles who break the law
and commit crimes, China adopts the policy of education, help and reform
and adheres to the principle of relying mainly on education while making
punishment subsidiary. While handling criminal cases concerning
juve"iniles, public security organs, people's procuratorates and people's
courts take full consideration of juveniles' physical and mental
characteristics, respect their personality and dignity, and safeguard
their legal rights and interests. Before criminals are tried, public
security organs, people's procuratorates, people's courts and judicial
administrative organs detain juveniles separately from adults; and
juveniles who serve a sentence decided by the people's court are
separately imprisoned from adult criminals and are treated differently.
All criminal cases of persons aged 14 and 15 are not tried publicly by
the people's court; and in general, criminal cases of persons aged 16 and
17 are not tried publicly. Before a criminal case of a teenager is
judged, it is stipulated that the press, films, TV programs and public
publications should not reveal the teenager's name, home address, photo
and other identifying data.

Organizational Guarantee

To truly protect children's rights and interests, China's legislation,
judicial and government departments concerned as well as mass
organizations have set up corresponding mechanisms to supervise, effect
and propel the healthy development of the work impacting children's
protection.

As the highest organ of state power in China, the National People's
Congress (NPC) has a Committee for Internal and Judicial Affairs
responsible for legislation for the protection of women and children's
rights and interests and for the supervision and check-up of law
enforcement. This committee has a special group for women and children
staed with full-time working personnel. The Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conference (CPPCC) has a Subcommittee on Social and
Legislative Aairs, one of whose responsibilities is to supervise and
promote the implementation of the state's laws and regulations on women,
youth and children and raise proposals on work in this regard to the
state's legislation and administrative departments.

The State Council of China has set up the Work Committee for Women and
Children, which consists of responsible persons from the concerned
government departments and mass organizations, and a state councilor who
serves as chairperson. This committee has as its tasks to coordinate and
promote the governmental departments concerned with implementing the
Outline of the Program for Chinese Children's Development in the 1990s;
and harmonize and propel these departments to do practical things for
women and children. Both the central and local government departments
involving education, pub"ilic health, culture, public security, physical
culture and civil administration have set up functional organs to take
charge of the work for children. The provinces, autonomous regions and
municipalities have set up committees on women and children's aairs or
juvenile protection committees to organize and guide the work of
protecting local children's rights and interests. Some mass organizations
also perform many tasks to guarantee the development of the work
concerning children in China.

International Cooperation

To promote international cooperation in the protection of children, the
Chinese Government and society at large have taken an active part in
global and regional international cooperation and exchanges regarding
children's survival, protection and development while devoting themselves
to this cause in a down-to-earth and effective manner. In recent years,
China has achieved great success through cooperating with the UN
Children's Fund (UNICEF), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in its work
to protect children. In this regard, China has been highly praised by
international organizations and authoritative persons in the child
protection field.

Chinese Premier Li Peng, on behalf of the Chinese Government, signed the
World Declaration on the Survival, Protection and Development of Children
and the Plan of Action for Implementing the World Declaration on the
Survival, Protection and Development of Children in the 1990s (both
adopted by the World Summit for Children in 1990), which represent a
solemn promise made to several hundred million Chinese children as well
as to the international community. China actively participated in working
out the UN Convention on the Rights of Children. When the convention was
examined and approved at the 44th Session of the UN General Assembly in
1989, China was one of the co-sponsor countries that raised the draft
resolution for the approval of the convention. On December 29, 1990,
China formally signed the convention. The following year, the NPC
approved the convention, which formally became effective in China as of
April 1, 1992. The convention is a universally applicable standard worked
out by the international community for the protection of children's
rights. The Chinese Government has undertaken and conscientiously fullled
the obligations specied in the convention.

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