All-China Women’s Federation lifts over 5 million women out of poverty in past 5 years

By Yang Hao, People’s Daily

With more importance being attached on women in China’s poverty alleviation, a series of policies and measures have rolled out in the country since 2012 to help Chinese females get rid of poverty, offering strong support for impoverished Chinese women.

During the last five years, a poverty reduction campaign launched by All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF) had lifted over 5 million impoverished women out of poverty by helping them developing handicraft, farming and husbandry, housekeeping service and e-commerce businesses. The ACWF branches across the country also implemented a slew of policies to support Chinese women develop businesses, so as to ensure that no single female is left behind on the path of poverty alleviation.

Shi Shunlian, former Party chief of Shibadong village, Huayuan county of Xiangxi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture, central China’s Hunan province, has brought wealth to the village by developing the business of Miao embroidery, a traditional folk art of the Miao people.

In 2014, Shi established a Miao embroidery cooperative after retirement. Since then, the woman, who’s also the head of the village’s women’s federation, vitalized the Miao embroidery business of the village. The business accounted for over 1/3 of the village’s income when all 136 impoverished households of the village were lifted out of poverty in February 2017.

In Mengjin county of Luoyang, central China’s Henan province, villager Lv Miaoxia contracted 150 mu (10 hectares) of land on which she built a strawberry plantation, paving a path to wealth for her fellow villagers. Inspired by the woman, 32 similar strawberry plantations have emerged in surrounding areas, covering over 30,000 mu and offering jobs for more than 5,000 people, 90 percent of whom are females.

In a 300-square meter poverty alleviation workshop of a garment factory in Shandan county, Zhangye of northwest China’s Gansu province, stand dozens of professional sewing machines. Batches of clothes are being completed by female workers as the machines hum. Such poverty alleviation workshops set up exclusively for women workers add up to over 10,000 across China, offering jobs for them at their doorsteps.

Gan Youqin is a livestream host in Lingshan county, Qinzhou, south China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. She sold over 6 million kilograms of agricultural products produced in her hometown on livestream shows in 2019, and the total turnover reached 37 million yuan. The ACWF’s e-commerce programs also helped more than 500,000 impoverished women get rid of poverty through the new business form.

In recent years, the ACWF has established 786 demonstration bases of poverty alleviation across the country, with an investment of 39.3 million yuan ($6.08 million), and also led regional women’s federations to build over 20,000 poverty alleviation bases across the country exclusively for impoverished females. In addition, Chinese women have established more than 300,000 family farms and agricultural cooperatives.

By actively guiding poor women to join local industries, the federation has brought them steady income growth and injected energy to poverty alleviation efforts.