After the Center was established in 1995, counseling stations were set up in 17 towns and villages in the county, women’s rights protection teams were set up in all 417 villages with efforts of the county Women’s Federation and the Center during 1996-1998. Thus, a 3-tier (county, township and village) working network for rights protection has been established headed by the Center and was nominated as Qianxi Model to spread over the province in 1998. It was nominated for the Local Governmental Innovation Prize of China in 2004.
Features of 3-tier network
● A directive Center: the Center is the nucleus that deals with major legal aid cases, conduct project activities and direct the legal work in towns and villages.
● Integrity: the 3-tier network employs the current systems of the Women’s Federation, judicial agencies and the police and holds together lawyers, legal workers, women’s federation cadres, judicial offices, policemen and women actives so that multi-agency cooperation was promoted.
● Commonweal: the 3-tier network prioritizes social interests and commonweal and provides legal aid for poor women.
● Low cost, high efficiency: the 3-tier network helps strengthen the consciousness of law enforcement officers in protecting women’s rights and join resources and forces for women’s rights protection. Remarkable achievements were made with a limited number of working staffs and budget.
● Specialty: the 3-tier network consists of 1,700 working staffs with 39 at the Center, 51 at 17 counseling stations and 1, 638 in 417 teams. Training on legal business and gender awareness is conducted every year to share the resources. All working staffs are required to first obtain relevant certificates for work which show that they are legally qualified to carry out lawful protection of rights.