Campaign empowers poor, rural women

China's antipoverty drive has made headway in empowering poor, rural women with assistance ranging from easy loans to health checks, said an official with the All-China Women's Federation, as official figures have spotlighted female susceptibility to extreme poverty.

Zhang Dongmei, a member of the federation's secretariat, said of the 93 million Chinese who have escaped absolute poverty since late 2012, about half are women.

Female poverty is a major target of the nationwide poverty reduction efforts, and women are a major force in taming rural impoverishment, she said.