The China Society for Human Rights Studies Tuesday issued an article titled "The Long-Standing Issue of Gender Discrimination in the United States Seriously Hinders the Realization of Women's Human Rights within the Country."
The U.S. has not yet ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which is one of the United Nations' core human rights conventions, nor has it solved its own increasingly serious problem of gender discrimination, said the article, adding that this has significantly hampered the realization of women's human rights in the United States.
"Gender discrimination is a grave problem in U.S. society," the article said, adding that U.S. women suffer long-term, systematic, extensive, and systemic discrimination both publicly and secretly, mainly involving economic gender inequality, serious violent offenses against women and lack of protection for health rights among racial minority women.
"The United States is the most economically developed country in the world, but it fails to effectively protect women's economic rights within the country," said the article. "As such, U.S. women face serious discrimination in employment, payment, and career development."
On violent offenses against women, the article said that one in every three women in the United States has been harmed by domestic violence. Women in prisons suffer from serious violence. Female soldiers are often victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault during their term of military service. More than 32 percent of women in the U.S. military said they had been sexually assaulted, and 80 percent said they had been sexually harassed, said the article, citing surveys.
People participate in a protest march for survivors of sexual assault and their supporters in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., November 12, 2017. /Reuters Photo
On the lack of protection for health rights among racial minority women, the article said the mortality rates of racial minority women during childbirth or shortly after delivery are higher than those of white women in the United States.
The article also said U.S. women face serious problems of sexual harassment and sexual assault on campus and in workplace.
"The serious problem of gender discrimination in the United States severely hinders the realization of women's human rights, exacerbates social inequality in the country and hinders the development of the international human rights cause," said the article.
The serious problem of gender discrimination in the United States stems from profound and multi-faceted reasons. These include the historical tradition of gender discrimination, the patriarchal culture, and particularly, drawbacks of the U.S. social system, which constitute fundamental hindrances to the elimination of gender discrimination in the United States, said the article.
It also highlighted that, for years, the United States has been practicing "double standards" on human rights issues, using human rights just as a tool to maintain world hegemony, criticize other countries and interfere in other countries' internal affairs, while neglecting its own serious human rights issues.
What the United States has done runs counter to the values and objectives regarding human rights, said the article, adding that the United States has increasingly become a "disturber" and a "troublemaker" in the international human rights field and has seriously jeopardized the healthy development of the international human rights cause.
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Full text: Article on gender discrimination in U.S.
(Cover: Demonstrators hold signs outside the U.S. Supreme Court, June 27, 2016. /Reuters Photo )