The meeting was chaired by Liu Hongyan from China Population and Development Research Center; He Zhaohua, Deputy Director of the Department of International Cooperation of the National Health Commission, and Dr. BabatundeAhonsi, representative of UNFPA in China, delivered speeches at the opening ceremony. During expert speeches, Professor Li Shuzhuo from Xi’an Jiaotong University, Professor Song Jian and Professor LiuShuang from the School of Sociology and Population Studies of Renmin University of China, and Li Rui, Deputy Division Head from the Department of Population Surveillance and Family Planning of the National Health Commission, briefly discussed the current research, future focuses and social implications of skewed sex ratio. Ms. Tang Mengjun from China Population and Development Research Center overviewed the intervention activities and results over the past two years. Representatives from six project counties introduced the activities, results as well as experience and lessons under the project. Provincial-level representatives expressed their willingness to scale up project experience in respective provinces.
Initiated in 2016, the project is aimed to intervenethe root cause of skewed sex ratio at birth based on both “top-to-bottom” and “bottom-to-top” strategies. The project has been implemented by China Population and Development Research Center, and gained great support from the National Health Commission. In the past two years, researches on the consequences of skewed sex ratio at birth and relevant family policies have been conducted at the State level, and the toolkit for revising village regulations and folk rules about gender discrimination has been developed. A variety of activities with rich contents have been carried out in the six project counties, where local Party schools helped improve the awareness of gender equality among decision-makers. At project sites, multiple means of publicity have been used to advocate equality between men and women; village regulations and folk rules related to gender discrimination have been revised to promote women’s participation in public life. The sex ratio at birth showed an obvious decline in the six project counties.
At the end of the meeting, the project officials from UNFPA in China as well as workers and experts from the National Health Commission present at the meeting awarded certificates of honor to the project areas to thank their contribution to the project over the past two years. The end of the project doesn’t mean the end of the efforts to address the higher sex ratio at birth. China’s sex ratio at birth remains imbalanced, and there still is a long way to go.
