China's activist groups grow, even without official blessing

China's activist groups grow, even without official blessing

 

SHANGHAI -- Jin Ge used to be an idealist, unwilling to compromise and frustrated because of it. He felt as if he didn't belong in China. So 10 years ago he left for graduate school in the United States.

Then something happened in China that set the independent media producer on a course to become the kind of grassroots citizen advocate that's common in the West but rare in China's top-down system of Communist party and government control.

In 2006, a group of prostitutes had been paraded through the streets of the southern city of Shenzhen in a public shaming. Jin had seen some of his childhood friends enter the sex trade, and so the incident struck a nerve. He went online and started talking with others about the illegal sex trade in China, and soon he found himself flying to Wuhan, about 550 miles west of his native Shanghai.

Thus was born the Chinese Grassroots Women's Rights Workshop - to help sex workers in Wuhan, provide a forum for sex workers to communicate with each other and analyze the social conditions that have made the sex industry so huge in China.

In doing so, Jin joined the ranks of thousands of activists before him who've struggled to start independent grassroots groups in China. The government doesn't actively suppress such groups, whether they deal with the environment, poverty or sex workers, but it's hard to run them legally because most nongovernmental organizations are illegal and therefore can't raise funds without government approval.

"Basically, it's a paradox," Jin said. "So, most Chinese NGOs are not actually NGOs."

For example, Jin's organization collaborated with the Wuhan government's health department for the past two years, but is now registered as a private enterprise. He's hoping that the switch gives his group more independence.

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