Chinese woman wins sexual-discrimination case

HANGZHOU - A Chinese woman claimed a cooking school had violated her right to equal employment after it rejected her job application.

Guo Jing, a college graduate, took Dongfang Cooking Training School in Hangzhou to court after it denied her a job on the basis that "the school only wants male employees" in late June.

Guo said she met all the school's requirements for the clerical post and on Wednesday won her sexual discrimination case after an east China court ruled in her favor.

Xihu District People's Court in Hangzhou city, Zhejiang province, said the school had violated the woman's right to equal employment and should pay her 2,000 yuan ($323) in compensation.

Two years ago, a woman named Cao Ju sued a company for sexual discrimination and won. She was compensated 30,000 yuan in what has been called "China's first employment gender discrimination case",

A report from the All-China Women's Federation in 2011 showed that 56.7 percent of interviewed female college graduates said they had fewer opportunities than male counterparts. Ninety-one percent of interviewees felt they had been victims of sexual discrimination from employers.

"Sexual discrimination is very common in the job market," Guo said, "I want to tell women to protect our rights through established legal weapons".