Representatives from the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Chinese government, non-government organizations convened in Beijing Tuesday to conclude a four-year project promoting gender mainstreaming in China.

"The project has enhanced impact of the awareness of gender equality among China's high-ranking officials and decision-making departments, through series of seminars, trainings, surveys and advocacies," said Liu Bohong, vice director of Women's Studies Institute of China (WSIC) or the project Chinese coordinator.

The project, launched from August 2002 to April 2006, carried out by China's Ministry of Labor and Social Security, All-China Federation of Trade Unions, China Enterprise Confederation and All-China Women's Federation, under the technical support of ILO constituents.

The four project executors have set up job-service centers for jobless women and issued preferential low interest loans to women who start their own businesses in the past four years.

However, some problems remain unchanged. According to ILO Sub-Regional Office for Asia-Pacific gender specialist Nelien Haples, as China's economy growing rapidly, gender discrimination will be possibly getting intensified.

"In the labor market, for example, the flexibility increases, making the employer a bigger role and easier to discriminate women labor, like lower payment or worse working conditions," said Haples.

"China should change its mind-set of traditional gender culture, she should, must and can stand at the front in promoting gender mainstreaming," said Zhang Youyun, vice director of China Association of Employment Promotion.

In 1997, the UN defined Gender mainstreaming as: the integration of the gender perspective into every stage of policy processes, implementation, monitoring and evaluation with a view to promoting equality between women and men. It means assessing how policies impact on the life and position of both women and men and taking responsibility to re-address them if necessary.

This is the way to make gender equality a concrete reality in the lives of women and men creating space for everyone within the organizations as well as in communities - to contribute to the process of articulating a shared vision of sustainable human development and translating it into reality.

(Xinhua News Agency April 5, 2006)