Currently, the Marriage Law and the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Women outlaw domestic violence, but they are vague, activists say. “There are too many systemic problems, too many loopholes. It’s just too easy to do it,” said Feng Yuan, a leading feminist and a founder of the Anti-Domestic Violence Network, which has campaigned for a comprehensive law for 15 years.
Figures of the scale of the problem vary. Last year, Tan Lin, an official at the All-China Women’s Federation, said that 25 percent of women experienced violence in their marriage. But a study last year by Partners for Prevention, a United Nations program, found that 52 percent of about 1,000 Chinese men told researchers that they had been violent toward a woman.
And protection orders, considered a crucial method of combating domestic violence worldwide, are still experimental in China. Courts try to keep them quiet, concerned that without the authority of a law and an established system of practical enforcement, they may fail, and the court may lose face, feminists say.
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/pushing-for-a-law-against-domestic-violence-in-china
Comments (0)