The newly revised Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests focuses on solving pain points and difficulties in the protection of women's rights and interests, such as employment discrimination and sexual harassment, and provides a legal basis for procuratorial organs to carry out public interest litigation——
Protecting "Her Rights" in the Name of the Law
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On October 30, 2022, the newly revised Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests added public interest litigation provisions, clearly stipulating that if women's legitimate rights and interests are violated, resulting in damage to social and public interests, the procuratorate may initiate public interest litigation in accordance with the law.
A few days ago, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the All-China Women's Federation released typical cases, focusing on the comprehensive protection of women's rights and interests.
Failure to pay three times the wages to female employees working on statutory holidays, vulgar advertisements belittle women’s personal dignity, hundreds of female employees have been filmed and recorded in the process of changing clothes in the past ten years, women with intellectual disabilities have suffered domestic violence...
On November 25, the "International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women", the Supreme People's Procuratorate, together with the All-China Women's Federation, released a number of typical cases of procuratorial public interest litigation for the protection of women's rights and interests. Assure.
Highlight the protection of women's labor rights
On October 30, 2022, the newly revised Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests added public interest litigation provisions, which clarified the supervision situation and scope of cases of public interest litigation, and provided a direct legal basis for procuratorial organs to carry out public interest litigation in the field of protection of women's rights and interests.
Qiu Jinghui, deputy director of the Eighth Procuratorate of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, introduced that the typical cases released this time highlight the protection of women's labor rights and interests such as equal employment and rest and vacation.
Arranging pregnant and breastfeeding female employees to work overtime and night shifts; failing to include physical examination time into working hours; failing to formulate or implement a system to prevent and stop female employees from being sexually harassed in the workplace... Many supermarkets and shopping malls in Weicheng District, Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province In units with a large number of female employees, there is a problem of insufficient protection of the labor rights and interests of female employees.
The procuratorate filed an administrative public interest litigation case, and publicly delivered a procuratorial proposal for administrative public interest litigation to the Weicheng District Human Resources and Social Security Bureau, suggesting that it strengthen the supervision and management of employers, and promote the rectification of employers in place. A supermarket also included sexual harassment in its reward and punishment system Among them, there are strict penalties for sexual harassment.
"Men first" and "Men only" - when four employers in Haidian District of Beijing released advertisements for job positions such as graphic design apprentices, on-site representatives, and customer service managers, such content appeared in the job requirements.
Further investigation by the Beijing Railway Transportation Procuratorate found that on a large-scale online recruitment service platform operated by a human resources service agency in Haidian District, 13 employers from other provinces and cities had illegal acts of posting gender-discriminatory online recruitment information.
Through the pre-litigation procuratorial suggestions, the procuratorate urges administrative agencies to supervise relevant employers, supervises rectification of the review mechanism of online recruitment service platforms, and promotes traceability governance.
Call for an end to violations of women's personality rights
One of the highlights of this revision of the Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests is to regulate illegal acts that infringe on women's personality rights, protect women's privacy and reputation rights, and focus on the protection of women's privacy and reputation rights and other personal and personality rights.
Among the 10 typical cases released this time, 3 involved the protection of women's personal information, personal dignity, privacy protection and other personal and personal rights and interests.
The company installed surveillance cameras in the women's changing rooms without the knowledge of the female employees. In the past ten years, hundreds of female employees were photographed changing clothes and displayed in public areas.
The procuratorate performed its duties in accordance with the law and called for an end to violations of women's right to privacy.
This is a typical case of this release.
In February 2022, the Jiashan County Procuratorate in Zhejiang Province discovered in a theft case that the audio-visual materials transferred as evidence came from the video surveillance installed in the locker room of female employees by a company in Jiashan.
After investigation, it was found that the company used the room with storage function as the locker room for female employees in 2013. Due to the high mobility of employees and the consideration of security and safety, the company did not obtain the consent of female employees in advance. Surveillance cameras were installed in the corner of the locker room, and female employees were not informed afterwards.
During the nearly ten years from 2013 to March 2022, hundreds of female employees in the company were photographed and recorded by cameras while changing clothes and displayed in public areas, which seriously violated women's right to privacy.
The Jiashan County Procuratorate used methods such as public hearings, procuratorial recommendations, and joint meetings to carry out follow-up supervision throughout the entire process, and further promote the special protection of women's privacy rights in public places.
In a case handled by the Procuratorate of Zhangshu City, Jiangxi Province, a technology company used a lot of vulgar, vulgar, and kitsch terms in its advertisements when promoting and selling its products, derogating the human dignity of women and causing bad social impact.
The procuratorial organ issued pre-litigation procuratorial recommendations in accordance with the law based on expert opinions and public hearing conclusions.
After receiving the procuratorial suggestion, the Zhangshu City Market Supervision Bureau interviewed the heads of relevant enterprises, ordered the products involving vulgar advertisements to be removed from the entire network, and imposed administrative penalties of 800,000 yuan and 500,000 yuan on the two companies involved in the case.
Bringing Domestic Violence Into the Scope of Public Interest Litigation
The newly revised Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests on October 30, 2022 clearly stipulates that if women's legitimate rights and interests are violated, resulting in damage to social and public interests, the procuratorate may issue procuratorial recommendations, and stipulates that for violations of rural women's land rights and women's equal employment rights , Failure to take reasonable measures to prevent and stop sexual harassment, mass media demeaning women's personality, and other illegal acts that seriously damage women's rights and interests, the procuratorate may file a public interest lawsuit according to law.
Li Yueyang, deputy director of the Rights and Interests Department of the All-China Women's Federation, said that the issues listed above are common in the field of women's rights protection, and some localities and departments also have deficiencies in the performance of their duties. Solved, the effect is remarkable.
Li Yueyang gave an example, in the administrative public interest litigation case of the Procuratorate of Boertala Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to supervise and protect rural women's right to land contract management, the grassroots government illegally recovered the land of "married women" and infringed on rural women's land contract management rights. Under such circumstances, the procuratorial organ urges the grassroots government and relevant competent departments to fulfill their main responsibilities through public hearings and procuratorial recommendations.
"One case not only solved the problem that two 'married women' had not resolved in 30 years, but also promoted the governance of similar problems in the region." Li Yueyang said.
"In addition to the violations of women's rights and interests listed in the law, other serious violations of women's rights and interests can also be included in public interest litigation, such as domestic violence." Li Yueyang said that in practice, various places have begun to actively explore the development of anti-domestic violence prosecution public welfare litigation.
On June 24, 2020, relatives of Jin XX in Baoying County, Jiangsu Province reported to the local Women's Federation that Jin XX (mental disability level 4) was beaten by her husband and sent to hospital.
After preliminary investigation by the procuratorate, the receiving hospital found that the disabled woman had been violently beaten and did not call the police.
In further research, the procuratorate found that nearly 87% of the medical institutions in the county had not implemented the mandatory reporting system, and the supervision of the administrative agency was not in place.
The Procuratorate of Baoying County, Jiangsu Province issued a pre-litigation procuratorial suggestion, and jointly launched a special public interest litigation action with the County Women's Federation to "eliminate violence against women and safeguard women's rights and interests".
Qiu Jinghui said that around failure to perform anti-domestic violence duties in accordance with the law and other serious violations of women's rights and interests, the procuratorate actively and steadily explored and carried out public interest litigation for women's rights and interests in related fields.
Procuratorial organs may initiate public interest litigation for failure to perform reporting, admonition, assistance, protection, and other duties of preventing and stopping domestic violence, infringing upon the lawful rights and interests of an unspecified majority of women, and harming social and public interests.
Workers' Daily-China Industry Net reporter Lu Yue