Legislative bodies yesterday heard reports on the preparation of
China's first law on family planning, the development of rural
co-operative organs and a plan to check the implementation of the
law protecting minor's rights.
China's first legislation on family planning will not break through
the current policy, according to a senior family planning
official.
"The draft law would better protect individuals concerning their
rights to child-bearing and provide a legal basis for the family
planning policy,'' said Zhang Weiqing, minister of the State Family
Planning Commission.
Zhang briefed the Education, Science, Culture and Health Committee
of the National People's Congress (NPC) yesterday before the draft
law on population and family planning is submitted to the national
legislators today for preliminary reading.
The 21st session of the NPC Standing Committee, which opens today,
is expected to review nine draft legislations including the one on
family planning.
Zhang's commission is mainly responsible for the drafting of the
legislation.
"The law is designed to ensure sustainable development of
population and social and economic development,'' Zhang said.
Since the implementation of the family planning policy in the early
1970s, the nation has been vigorously working on improving
reproductive health and family-planning services and promoting
these services on the basis of individual choices, according to
Zhang.
In
other development, the NPC Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee
yesterday heard a report on the development of farmers' supply and
marketing co-operatives during the past six years.
The NPC Standing Committee, China's top legislative body, has
listed the legislation on the supply and marketing co-operatives on
their legislative agenda, according to Buhe, vice-chairman of the
committee.
Concerning the protection of minor's rights, NPC Internal and
Judicial Committee will dispatch five groups of legislators next
month to check the implementation of the 10-year-old Law on the
Protection of Minor's Rights. They will visit Heilongjiang, Hunan
and Yunnan provinces, city of Shanghai and the Ningxia Hui
Autonomous Region.
The legislators will focus their attention on the existence of
things like pornography and violence that hamper the healthy
development of minors, protection of their rights to receive
education and to be free from violence, as well as the crackdown on
juvenile delinquency. They will also check to see that child-labour
is prohibited.
(China Daily 04/24/2001)