China: Meiqing Hua

As a grassroots policewoman, I work little by little, adding one drop to another, in legal advocacy work. The prevention of domestic violence is an important task.

— Meiqing Hua

Hua Meiqing is a policewoman serving at the Pingan Road Police Station of the Sifang Substation of the Qingdao Public Security Bureau. In 1993 she began to work supervising prostitutes; in 2002 she started to take on tasks aimed at tackling domestic violence. She took care of victimized women and created a way in which the police could intervene in domestic violence. She writes extensively on the subject.

Dressed in police uniform, Hua Meiqing is like a rose in a sea of green. She is strong-willed, sensible, and responsible. After leaving school, Hua took up a career in the police force. As a policewoman, she has found her own position in her life; as a woman, she has become aware of her value in the process of helping other women. She has had to face many problems in her work: people tend to misunderstand her work, her unit did not have enough funds, sometimes her emotions have got in the way. Slowly things began to improve as her work progressed. Compared with the progress being made in other countries, in China the campaign against domestic violence has only just started. Many legal areas in this area are inadequate, and conceptual work is lacking. Hua Meiqing feels that there is a long way to go as the number of cases of domestic violence is still very high. She is doing her best to encourage people around her to act against domestic violence. She is a woman who loves letters, and currently she is a member of Qingdao Writers’ Association. She always writes articles about police work and tries to get them published so as to publicize their work against domestic violence. She once said, “As a policewoman involved in political work, I should, more than my male colleagues, pay attention to affected women, and try to encourage the male police officers to take on tasks to help these women.”

Qingdao Public Security Bureau