6. In bringing about the development of that cause, China has embarked on a path of human rights development that is in keeping with the trend of the times and suitable to its national conditions. This path follows the leadership of the Communist Party of China, ensures that the people are the masters of the country, upholds the equal enjoyment of human rights and promotes the all-around advancement of human rights of all kinds. We uphold respect for the principal status of the people, protect the people’s democratic rights, fully stimulate their motivation, initiative and creativity and enable the people to be the main participants, promoters and beneficiaries of the development of the cause of human rights.

We proceed from the country’s reality, combining the principle of universality of human rights with the reality in China and promoting the development of the cause of human rights in the light of the national conditions in China and of the needs of its people. We uphold the right to subsistence and the right to development as the primary basic human rights, fully and faithfully apply the new development philosophy on all fronts, adhere to a people-centred development philosophy in which development is for the people and by the people and its results are shared by the people, and focus on resolving the issues of the people’s most immediate and practical concern. We uphold the protection of human rights in accordance with the law, maintain the equality of all persons before the law, ensure respect for and protection of human rights throughout all aspects of legislation, law enforcement, justice administration and compliance with the law, and are accelerating the improvement of a legal system that embodies fairness in rights, opportunities and rules. We actively participate in global human rights governance, promote humanity’s common values, and practise true multilateralism. We have put forward the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, and call on all parties to protect human rights through security, advance human rights through development, promote human rights through 

cooperation and advance the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

 

 

 

7. China continues to improve the development of a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics, which has the Constitution as its core and other laws as its backbone and includes administrative regulations, local regulations and other regulatory documents. Since the previous review, China has enacted 51 new laws, including the Civil Code, the Legal Aid Law, the Personal Information Protection Law and the Barrier-free Environment Creation Law, and has revised 113 laws, including the Law on the Protection of Women’s Rights and 

Interests and the Law on the Protection of Minors. The 298 laws currently in effect in China provide a more solid legal foundation for the development of human rights.

 

 

8. Since the last review, China has acceded to the 1930 Convention on Forced Labour, the 1957 Convention on the Abolition of Forced Labour and the Marrakech Treaty. To date, China has ratified or acceded to 29 international human rights instruments (see annex III) and has always participated in the reviews of the implementation of human rights treaties in an open, transparent and responsible manner.

 

9. China actively participates in international cooperation to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund, established by China, has implemented more than 110 development cooperation projects in nearly 60 developing countries, on such themes as disaster relief, health, women and children, refugees and environmental protection, contributing to local human rights protection through better development.
 

 

 

16. The Chinese Government actively protects citizens’ freedom of association. As of the end of 2022, some 890,000 social organizations had been registered and were active in the fields of education, science and technology, culture, health, public welfare and charity. The law on the administration of activities of overseas NGOs in the mainland of China provides legal safeguards for the activities of overseas non-governmental organizations in China. More than 1,700 overseas NGOs from more than 70 countries and regions have registered to 

carry out activities in China in accordance with the law.

 

17. Chinese NGOs actively participate in meetings of the United Nations Human Rights Council and its subsidiary mechanisms, and play a constructive role in the participation of China in the universal periodic review, as well as reviews of the implementation of human rights treaties and the implementation of national human rights action plans.

 

 

 

 

18. Subsistence is the foundation for the enjoyment of all human rights, and a life of contentment for the people is the ultimate human right. Since 2018, China has maintained 

steady and sound economic and social development. The overall economy reached 121 trillion yuan RMB in 2022, and GDP per capita reached 85,698 yuan. The endeavour to 

make China an innovative country has made significant progress, with the ranking of China rising from thirty-fourth to eleventh place on the Global Innovation Index.

 

19. Through a targeted poverty alleviation strategy, China has lifted nearly 100 million rural poor out of poverty, and achieved the poverty reduction target of the 2030 Agenda for 

Sustainable Development ten years ahead of schedule.

 

20. The country’s food production has steadily developed, with the land area sown for grain production steadily rising and grain production steadily rising and stabilizing at more 

than 650 million tons for eight consecutive years, and has achieved a bumper harvest for the nineteenth year in a row.

 

 

21. Employment is of paramount importance for the people’s livelihood. China attaches great importance to safeguarding the equal employment rights and interests of workers, and 

provides employment support and assistance to all categories of workers without discrimination. According to national surveys, the year-end urban unemployment rate 

remained no more than 5.5 per cent from 2018 to 2022.

 

22. An assessment mechanism for the minimum wage has been established and improved. The average monthly minimum wage has increased by about 3.7 per cent on an annual basis 

since 2018, as a result of multiple rounds of adjustments in various provinces, municipalities and regions.

 

23. Malicious wage arrears, illegal overtime work and other labour violations are subject to prioritized oversight. A total of 723,000 labour-law monitoring bodies have been established by trade unions at all levels throughout the country, with 1.406 million labour law monitors.

 

24. China continues to provide public-welfare legal services for migrant workers. Since 2017, such services have been extended to migrant workers in more than 29 million instances; 141,000 labour dispute cases have been mediated, assisting in the recovery of more than 4 billion yuan in economic losses.

 

 

25. China has built the largest social security system in the world, basically providing security to all those entitled to it. From 2018 to 2022, the system has provided subsistence allowances for more than 40 million people, allowances for nearly 5 million especially impoverished people, 10 million instances of temporary assistance, and dynamic monitoring and regular assistance to more than 66 million low-income people. By the end of 2022, the average national monthly urban subsistence allowance stood at 752 yuan per person, and the yearly rural subsistence allowance standard stood at 6,985 yuan per person, increasing by 29.7 per cent and 44.5 per cent respectively from the end of 2018.

 

 

26. China insists on the position that “houses are for living in, not for speculation”, and continue to improve a housing system that ensures supply through multiple sources, provides housing support through multiple channels, and encourages both housing purchase and renting. Over the past ten years, China has completed a cumulative investment of 14.8 trillion yuan, building more than 59 million units of affordable housing and run-down-area rehabilitated housing of various types, thereby basically ensuring that disadvantaged and low-income families can share in realizing the dream of proper housing for 140 million people.

 

 

27. China ranks first in the world in the scale of its education. In 2022, there were 518,500 schools at all levels and of all types throughout the country, with 293 million students receiving formal education. China implements nine years of compulsory education free of charge. Between 2014 and 2022, the national net rate of enrolment in primary schools increased from 99.81 per cent to 99.9 per cent, and the gross enrolment rate in junior secondary schools remained above 100 per cent.

 

28. Since the implementation of the national student loan policy in 1999, China issued more than RMB 400 billion in loans to over 20 million students from families in financial difficulty, to prevent students from dropping out of school due to their family’s financial constraints.

 

 

29. China is committed to growing its cultural vibrancy, continuously improving the public cultural services system, vigorously developing cultural programmes and the cultural sector, and ensuring that people fully enjoy their cultural rights. Nationwide, there are 3,303 free public libraries and 45,623 cultural libraries or cultural centres. We are further improving radio and television coverage and service quality, and the overall radio and television coverage of the population has steadily increased from 98.71 per cent and 99.07 per cent in 2018 to 99.65 per cent and 99.75 per cent respectively.

 

30. We attach great importance to the protection and endurance of ethnic-minority cultures. Projects from all 56 ethnic groups in China have been included on the national-level list of representative intangible cultural heritage projects. China has identified a total of 3,057 representative intangible cultural heritage successors in five groups at the national level, of which 848 or 27.64 per cent are members of ethnic minorities, exceeding the proportion of ethnic minority members in the population.

 

 

31. China always puts the people first and puts life first, and is implementing the Healthy China Initiative to improve the health of citizens throughout their life cycles. Its main health indicators are among the higher ones in the middle- and high-income countries. By the end of 2022, nearly 980,000 primary health-care facilities of all kinds had been built nationwide, with 90 per cent of households in the country being able to reach the nearest such facility within 15 minutes.

 

32. China’s basic medical insurance enrolment rate has stabilized at more than 95 per cent, the hospital-expenses reimbursement ratio covered by the employee health insurance and residents’ health insurance schemes has reached 80 per cent and 70 per cent respectively, and the average reimbursement ratio for major illnesses has been raised to a level 18 percentage points higher than that under the basic medical insurance scheme. 

 

33. We are continuously improving the maternal and child health service system, which provides basic maternal health services and child health services free of charge to urban and rural women and children. In 2022, the national maternal mortality rate declined to 15.7 per hundred thousand, the infant mortality rate to 4.9 per thousand, and the under-5 mortality rate to 6.8 per thousand.

 

 

34. China acts on the belief that “clear waters and green mountains are just as valuable as gold and silver”. We firmly uphold the goals, principles and regimes set out in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Paris Agreement. We have declared that China will strive to peak CO2 emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060, and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad. In vigorously promoting the green transformation of industries and energy restructuring, we have achieved a number of global firsts: the largest-scale afforested area in the world, accounting for one quarter of the global total; the largest-scale renewable energy development and utilization in the world, with the installed capacity of wind and solar power accounting for more than one third of the global total; and the largest-scale production and sales of new energy vehicles in the world. The quality of water environments has been steadily improving; in 2022, the main stem of the Yangtze River reached Class II water quality for the third consecutive year, while the main stem of the Yellow River reached Class II water quality for the first time. The Environmental Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China establishes public participation as one of the basic principles of environmental protection and guarantees citizens’ rights to information, participation and oversight.

 

 

 

35. China attaches equal importance to preventing and combating terrorist activities and to safeguarding human rights; in accordance with the law, it punishes those who commit terrorist activities and educates and rehabilitates those who commit minor criminal or illegal acts, and no violent terrorist activities have occurred in China for more than six consecutive years. China has been lawfully combating drug-related criminal activities, and drug cases have declined for seven consecutive years since 2016. We are effectively combating human trafficking; the number of cases of trafficking in women and children across the country fell by 86.1 per cent in 2022 compared with 2013. With the establishment by the Ministry of Public Security of a platform for the urgent release of information on missing children, the recovery rate for missing children has reached 98.5 per cent.

 

 

36. China has comprehensively developed whole-process people’s democracy, clarifying major ideas and specific systems, ensuring that the people run the country, and enabling the people to enjoy broader, fuller and more comprehensive democratic rights. We have established and are improving a working mechanism for communication with National People’s Congress deputies, by means of setting up local legislative outreach offices, representative liaison stations and other ways to keep channels open for communication with the people. We have amended the Legislation Law of the People’s Republic of China to make clear that legislation should respect and protect human rights, and are carrying out in-depth implementation of the Regulation on the Disclosure of Government Information to protect the people’s rights to information, participation, expression and oversight.

 

37. Many cities in China have opened “12345” government services hotlines to transmit citizens’ complaints about administrative services to the competent authorities in the shortest possible time and to set up deadlines for resolving the complaints. According to statistics, both the complaint resolution rate and the response satisfaction rate exceed 90 per cent.

 

38. We have strengthened and improved the handling of public complaints and proposals. We have formulated the Regulation on Handling Public Complaints and Proposals, improved the system for collecting proposals from the people and opened online portals for complaints and proposals, connecting more than 100,000 administrative units throughout the country via the Internet, greatly improving the efficiency of public complaints and proposals processing and resolving a large number of issues of great concern to the people.

 

 

39. China is committed to ensuring that the people feel justice has been served in every judicial case. We are deepening the reform of the trial-centred criminal procedure system, resolutely applying the principles of legality and presumption of innocence, and preventing torture and coercion of confessions by means of such measures as audio and video recording of interrogations, full coverage by defence lawyers in criminal cases, and the exclusion of unlawful evidence. Between 2018 and 2022, 53 people were lawfully acquitted in 26 cases of wrongful conviction in major criminal cases, and defendants in 2,675 public prosecution cases and 2,097 private prosecution cases were declared innocent in accordance with the law.

 

40. The corps of lawyers in China has grown to more than 600,000 persons and is an important force in building a country governed by the rule of law. China fully protects the rights of lawyers to meet, communicate, read case documents, take evidence and mount defences, as well as their rights to seek professional remedies and protections. To improve the system for lawyers’ participation in litigation, we have established a disposition mechanism to safeguard the right of lawyers to practise law and improve their participation in the litigation system, by ensuring that when violations of their rights happen, prompt actions are taken to open cases, launch investigations, deliver justice and inform the victim of the results.

 

41. China has established a legal aid system to provide pro bono legal services to people in difficult economic circumstances and other parties who meet the legal conditions. China practises judicial openness at all stages of the work related to trials and execution of judgments, making public a cumulative total of over 100 million judicial documents and more than 6.1 billion items of information regarding trial processes, building the world’s largest repository of judicial trial information with an aggregate total of more than 218 million items of information on cases.

 

 

42. China guarantees citizens’ right to freedom of religious belief in accordance with the law. There are currently nearly 200 million religious believers, more than 380,000 members of the clergy, some 5,500 religious groups, 144,000 places of religious activity and 95 religious schools. 

 

 

43. In accordance with the law, China protects the right of journalists in the news media to conduct lawful interviews and facilitate supervision by public opinion. According to statistics, there are currently more than 580 book publishing entities in China, more than 1,800 newspapers, over ten thousand periodicals and more than 2,500 radio and television broadcasting organs. As of June 2023, the number of Internet news and information service providers in China had reached 3,498, that of Internet users had reached 1.079 billion, and that of users of instant messaging, network videos and short videos had reached 1.047 billion, 1.044 billion and 1.026 billion respectively.

 

 

 

44. China adheres to the basic State policy of equality between men and women. The Law on the Protection of Women’s Rights and Interests has been amended to include a definition of discrimination against women. Since the implementation of the Anti-Domestic Violence Law in 2016, China has established and improved mechanisms for cooperation among multiple government departments and has continuously strengthened the implementation of the system of issuing a discovery report, written warning and personal safety order. The level of education and employment of women in China continues to improve. The proportion of female students in undergraduate and postgraduate education exceeds that of male students, 

and women account for 55 per cent of Internet start-up entrepreneurs and 45.8 per cent of the science and technology workforce.

 

 

45. China views the proper upbringing of its more than 298 million children as a strategic and foundational task. We have amended the Law on the Protection of Minors and the Law on the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency and defined the principle of “upholding the best interests of minors,” and follow a policy of “zero tolerance” for crimes against minors. The funding standard for the basic subsistence allowance for orphans through a specialized funding mechanism of the central Government was increased by 50 per cent in 2019, extending the scope of protection to such areas as rehabilitation, medical care, and education. We are also building a system of care services for children left behind in rural areas; some 

667,000 village children’s-affairs directors and 55,000 township children’s affairs supervisors are working to strengthen children’s welfare at the community level throughout the country.

 

 

46. China strives to enable the elderly to share the achievements of reform and development and enjoy a happy life in their old age. China has improved the system for providing elderly care services at home, through communities and by institutions that meet different medical care and health care needs. By the end of 2022, the number of service institutions and facilities for the elderly had reached 387,000 nationwide, with a total of 8.294 million beds. The establishment of old-age allowances, financial hardship service subsidies and care subsidies for the incapacitated elderly had benefited 34.064 million, 5.749 million and 944,000 people respectively by the end of 2022. Public cultural facilities at all levels are free or concessionary for the elderly; senior citizens can enjoy free or half-price preferential fares on public transport; senior community residents enjoy 

“community cafeterias”, assisted bathing, medical assistance and other services; third age universities are developing rapidly; and “Senior Appreciation Month” activities are carried out in October every year. Steady progress is being made in building an elderly-friendly society.

 

 

47. China adheres to the idea that people with disabilities can also live a wonderful life. China provides living subsidies for people living with disabilities and in financial difficulty and nursing care subsidies for people with severe disabilities to 27 million persons in those categories. The coverage of basic rehabilitation services and assistive adaptive services for people with disabilities exceeds 80 per cent; the enrolment rate in compulsory education for children with disabilities exceeds 95 per cent, and more than 10,000 students with disabilities are enrolled in institutions of higher learning each year. China has established its first university of rehabilitation sciences. The number of people with disabilities working in urban and rural areas exceeds 9 million. About 6,600 persons with disabilities and persons who work for the disabled are serving as deputies to the people’s congresses or members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference at all levels and participate in the management of public affairs. The Barrier-free Environment Creation Law officially entered into force in September 2023. 

 

 

48. China guarantees all ethnic groups’ equal enjoyment of rights in all areas in accordance with the law. According to the Seventh National Population Census (conducted in 2020), the ethnic-minority population was about 125 million, an increase of more than 11 million since the Sixth Population Census (conducted in 2010). In 2022, GDP in eight provinces and autonomous regions with significant ethnic-minority populations had increased by 22.1 per cent from the 2018 level at comparable values, with an average annual growth of 5.1 per cent, 0.2 percentage points higher than the overall national figure for the same period. By the end of 2021, 34.7705 million students from ethnic minorities were enrolled in schools of all types and levels throughout the country, accounting for about 11.43 per cent of the total number of enrolled students nationwide and exceeding the proportion of ethnic minorities in the population overall. Free education from kindergarten to high school has been achieved in some regions in Tibet and Xinjiang. The Chinese Government regularly organizes major national ethnic-minority arts and sports events, such as the National Ethnic Minority Culture and Arts Gala, the National Traditional Ethnic-Minority Games, and ethnic-minority literature awards.

 

 

 

49. Since 2018, China has actively participated in global human rights governance and launched a series of initiatives in such forums as the Human Rights Council. We conduct constructive exchanges and cooperation with the United Nations human rights mechanisms, including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the special procedures and the human rights treaty bodies. We have invited the former High Commissioner for Human Rights [Michelle] Bachelet, as well as the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons, and others, to visit China, and we respond to the communications of the special procedures in a conscientious and timely manner.

 

 

50. China has long provided development assistance to a wide range of developing countries with no political strings attached. For over 70 years, China has provided assistance to more than 160 countries and international organizations to help recipient countries strengthen their ability to develop independently, improve their people’s lives and promote economic development and social progress. China continues to advance the Belt and Road Initiative and provide new opportunities for the world through its own new development. In the past ten years, 420,000 jobs have been created in Belt and Road countries and nearly 40 million people have been lifted out of poverty.

 

51. Since 2018, China has held human rights dialogues and exchanges with more than 30 countries and regions, and organized such international human rights conferences as the “Forum on Global Human Rights Governance” and the “South-South Human Rights Forum” to promote enhanced exchanges and mutual learning among all parties.

 

 

 

52. For a major developing country with more than 1.4 billion people, problems of inadequate and imbalanced development remain prominent in China. There are many obstacles and bottlenecks to promoting high-quality development, and our ability to innovate in science and technology is not yet strong. We also face many major problems in ensuring reliable and secure food, energy, industrial and supply chains and financial risk preparedness. The gap in development and income distribution between urban and rural areas and between different regions remains large. The people face many difficulties in employment, education, medical care, childcare, old-age care and housing. The task of protecting the ecological environment remains daunting. There is still a gap between the level of judicial capacity on the one hand and the requirements of Chinese modernization and the growing demand of the people for fairness and justice on the other.

 

 

53. Looking to the future, China will continue to raise the level of human rights protections and promote the free and comprehensive development of the people as it promotes the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through Chinese modernization.

 

54. China will adhere to the philosophy of people-centred development, uphold the protection and improvement of the people’s livelihood in development, and steadily advance common prosperity. China will develop whole-process people’s democracy, improve the system of institutions through which the people run the country, encourage people’s orderly participation in political affairs and protect their enjoyment of broad rights and freedoms in accordance with the law. China will strengthen equal protection of and special support for the rights and interests of specific groups. China will actively participate in global human rights governance, advocate dialogue and cooperation, promote the work of the United Nations human rights mechanisms in a just, objective, non-selective and non-politicized manner, and advance the development of global human rights governance in 

a fairer, more equitable, more reasonable and more inclusive direction.

 

 

 

55. This report was prepared by the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) after careful consideration of comments received during three weeks of public consultation in June 2023.

 

 

56. The HKSAR fully and faithfully implements the One Country, Two Systems policy. The constitutional order of the Special Administrative Region, based on the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China and the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (the “HKSAR Basic Law”), operates in a stable and robust manner and the rights and freedoms enjoyed in accordance with the law by Hong Kong residents are fully protected. The HKSAR participates in reviews of the implementation of international covenants on human rights, pursuant to arrangement by the Central Government.

 

57. Responding to a period of daunting circumstances in Hong Kong, in June 2020, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress enacted the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (the “HKSAR National Security Law”), whose immediate promulgation and implementation in the HKSAR effectively ended a violent, destructive and chaotic situation. In March 2021, the National People’s Congress made appropriate and necessary adjustments to the electoral system of the HKSAR to ensure that the principle of “patriots administering Hong Kong” is implemented. Since the promulgation and implementation of the HKSAR National Security Law and the improvement of the electoral system, the situation in Hong Kong has marked a major turn from chaos to governance and 

has moved towards a new phase of stability and prosperity. Hong Kong society has put the volatile situation behind it, and the rights and freedoms of Hong Kong residents are better protected in a safer and more orderly environment.

 

 

58. During the third-cycle review, the Chinese Government accepted the five recommendations made by countries concerned regarding the HKSAR, and the HKSAR has been implementing appropriate and effective measures.

 

59. The HKSAR protects the freedoms of press and expression of Hong Kong residents. The media may exercise their freedom of expression in accordance with the law, and comment on or even criticize the work of the HKSAR government. The number of local, Chinese mainland and overseas media organizations registered with the Press Service of the Information Services Department of the HKSAR government has increased by 39 per cent compared with 2018. The public continues to enjoy freedom of peaceful assembly and association. The number of registered trade unions and trade union federations increased by 60.7 per cent between the end of 2018 and June 2023. As it facilitates the expression of views by people at gatherings and marches, the HKSAR is also responsible for maintaining national security and public order. The police always handle public activities in accordance with the Public Order Ordinance (Cap. 245) and relevant laws. The HKSAR consistently upholds the rule of law, its courts conduct trials independently, and the Court of Final Appeal exercises the power of final adjudication of the HKSAR. The Court of Final Appeal may invite judges from other common-law jurisdictions to take part in its proceedings, as needed. There are currently 11 non-permanent overseas judges from the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada taking part in the proceedings of the Court of Final Appeal on occasion. Hong Kong residents continue to participate in public affairs (including public elections) (recommendations 205, 343 and 345).

 

60. The HKSAR attaches great importance to protecting the rights and interests of foreign domestic helpers, who are covered by the Employment Ordinance and enjoy the additional benefits provided for in the Standard Employment Contract (ID 407) established by the government. The Labour Department of the HKSAR government set up a specialized unit to provide “one-stop shop” support for foreign domestic helpers in 2020 (recommendation 344).

 

61. The Hong Kong Commission on Children was established in 2018 to provide comprehensive oversight of children’s affairs and formulate policies, strategies and work priorities on children’s development and growth, as well as monitor their implementation. In June 2023, the HKSAR government submitted a bill to the Legislative Council on the mandatory reporting of child abuse, aimed at early detection and intervention in child abuse cases and strengthening child protection (recommendation 346).

 

 

62. The HKSAR is making every effort to accelerate, increase and improve the supply of public housing and to reduce the waiting time for units to become available. It has published blueprints for the development of youth, scientific and technical entrepreneurship, and primary medical care, is focusing on increasing the supply of labour to support the economy, and is setting short, medium and long-term relief measures on different issues to benefit the people and build a people-centred society together.

 

 

 

63. The government of the Macao Special Administrative Region (MSAR) prepared the present report on the basis of extensive information collected from all relevant departments along with comments solicited from the public from 9 June 2023 to 10 July 2023.

 

 

64. The legislative framework for human rights in Macao is composed of the Basic Law of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (the “MSAR Basic Law”), the international human rights conventions as applied in Macao, and local laws. The MSAR participates in reviews of the implementation of international covenants on human rights, pursuant to arrangement by the Central Government.

 

65. Within the framework of the MSAR Basic Law and the One Country, Two Systems principle, the MSAR enjoys executive and legislative powers, as well as independent judicial and final adjudication authority. Various committees, composed of representatives of governmental and non-governmental organizations, assist the MSAR government in formulating policies for the protection of human rights. The Commission Against Corruption oversees the work of the public sector. The Commission for Disciplinary Control of the Security Forces and Services has been given greater social representation and powers since 2019 to assist the Chief Executive in monitoring the law enforcement departments.

 

 

66. Since the previous review cycle, the MSAR has continued to promote legislation on the rule of law and human rights guarantees, formulate various policy measures and safeguard public participation in the formulation of policies or legislative processes. At the same time, human rights law activities have been carried out on an ongoing basis, in cooperation with NGOs, to promote human rights awareness among different communities, and to provide human rights training to government officials, magistrates, teachers, etc.

 

67. The MSAR optimized the court system and improved judicial efficiency through the adoption in 2019 of amendments to the MSAR Law on Judicial Organization and the introduction in 2022 of electronic measures in legal proceedings; the MSAR Law on Minimum Wage for Employees was also enacted to further protect the rights of employees and give equal importance to the rights of foreign employees.

 

68. Since 2018, the MSAR has implemented a two-tier social security system. The first level of social security ensures access to basic social security protections for residents, while the second, a non-mandatory central provident fund system, supports more favourable life protections post-retirement. The provision of various types of support and financial assistance to economically disadvantaged families is ongoing, and measures and amounts of assistance are adjusted in a timely manner to meet the conditions of socioeconomic development. A five-step housing policy has been set up to optimize the application process for low-cost housing.

 

69. The MSAR has formulated the MSAR Medium- and Long-Term Planning for Non-Tertiary Education (2021–2030) to improve the free, compulsory and special education systems, and has drafted a Plan for Macao Women’s Development Goals (2019–2025) to ensure fuller protections and equal development opportunities for women in all social spheres. A childcare services planning programme was implemented for 2018–2022, and continues for 2023–2025, providing needed services for young children and their families. Conditions for persons with disabilities to claim disability benefits have been relaxed, and we are promoting inclusive education for and facilitation of employment of persons with disabilities.

 

 

70. The MSAR will strive to promote the development of key sectors, including health, modern finance, high and new technologies, trade conventions and exhibitions, and sports and culture, while continuously improving the level of human rights protection in all fields as it advances economic and social development.