June 27, 2018 -- A sideline meeting on Xinjiang’s human rights development and progress was held Monday during the 38th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. 

 

The meeting, which was the first of this kind, was sponsored by the China Society for Human Rights Studies (CSHRS), attracting some 60 representatives from government, international organizations and non-government organizations. 

 

Gao Jianlong, president of Xinjiang Academy of Social Science, said the poverty-stricken areas in Xinjiang have seen rapid development, ensuring people’s rights to subsistence and development. 1.39 million people have been lifted out of poverty in Xinjiang from 2012 to 2017.

 

Before the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region was founded, women of ethnic minorities have little access to education. But now they have been a pillar of social development of Xinjiang, with the number of well-educated women employed by the non-private sector in urban areas accounting for 40.4 percent, said Zuliyati Simayi, deputy dean of the School of Politics and Public Administration, Xinjiang University.

 

Zhao Shukun, professor with the Research Institute of Human Rights, Southwest University of Political Science and Law, said with 60.3 hospital beds and 21.2 doctors serving for every 10,000 people by the end of 2016, Xinjiang’s medical service capacity was higher than the national average.