American women, children in worrying conditions: China's report

The situation of American women and children was disturbing. The rates of women and children physically or sexually victimized were high, says a report issued by the Information Office of China's State Council Thursday.

According to FBI Crime Statistics, in 2003 the United States witnessed 93,233 cases of raping. Virtually 63.2 in every 100,000 women fell victims. The statistics also showed that every two minutes one woman was sexually assaulted and every six minutes one woman was raped, says the report, entitled the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2004.

"The number of women abused and treated at First Aid Centers exceeded one million every year," it says.

Women's labor and social rights were violated, the report says. According to The Sun newspaper (Jul. 16, 2004), the charges handled by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on sexual discrimination against women grew 12 percent in the past decade.

Statistics released by the US Labor Department in Jan. 2004 showed a woman who worked full time had the median earning of 81.1 percent of that for a man. The Chicago Tribune said on Aug. 27, 2004 that the rate of women in poverty went up fast, to 12.4 percent of the entire female population.

The health care for American women was also at a low level, the report says. The US Family Medical Leave Act guarantees 12 weeks of unpaid leave for childbirth to about half of all mothers and nothing for the rest.

A study of 168 countries conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health indicated that US workers have fewer rights to time off for family matters than workers in most other countries, and rank near the bottom in pregnancy and sick leave.

In addition, according to the report, child poverty was a serious problem. The Chicago Tribune reported on Aug. 27, 2004 that the number of children in poverty climbed from 12.1 million in 2002 to 12.9 million in 2003, a year-on-year increase of 0.9 percent.

A story released from AP Washington on Oct. 12, 2004 said that about 20 million children lived in "low-income working families" --with barely enough money to cover basic needs.

Children were victims of sex crimes, the report says. Every year about 400,000 children in the US were forced to engage in prostitution or other sexual dealings on the streets. Reports on children sexually exploited, which were received by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, soared from 4,573 cases in 1998 to 81,987 cases in 2003 .

Meanwhile, violent crimes occurred frequently. Studies show nearly 20 percent of US juveniles lived in families that possessed guns. A report released by the US Justice Department on November 29, 2004 said about 9 percent of school kids aged 9 to 12 admitted being threatened with injury or having suffered an injury from a weapon while at school in 2003.

"More and more schoolers were reluctant to go to school because of security concern", the report says.

It also says that child abuses and neglects were widely reported in the United States. The Sun newspaper reported on May 18, 2004 that in 2002, a total of 900,000 children in the United States were abused, of whom nearly 1,400 died. Every year, 1.98 out of every 100,000 American children were killed by their parents or guardians.

Two thirds of juvenile detention facilities in the United States lock up mentally ill youth; every day, about 2,000 youth were incarcerated simply because community mental health services were unavailable.