Shen Jilan was a Chinese politician affiliated with the Communist Party of China and former farmer. She had held numerous governance positions and was elected to the 1st National People's Congress in 1954, and had been re-elected for all the subsequent sittings of the National People's Congress over the next 65 years, the only person to have done so. This has led to some commentators calling her the world's longest serving congresswoman.
Biography
Shen was born in Pingshun County, Shanxi on 29 December 1929. Her father Song Jinshui died early. In 1934 her mother Wu Quanxiang remarried to Shen Hengtai, a doctor in Pingshun County. Shen Jilan grew up in Pingshun County. In 1943 she responded to a call by Mao Zedong and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to establish party organisation in Xigou village alongside Li Shunda. Together with other farming families she established a local agricultural labour mutual aid group and defence force and came to prominence within the party through the 1950s based on the success of this local cooperative. In 1952 she was encouraged by higher powers in the Communist party to widen the cooperative to cover 26 individual farms - the first production cooperative to be established in the People's Republic of China. On the establishment of this wider cooperative Jilan was elected deputy president. She established a working women's group to carry out agricultural work. In 1954, she proposed the addition of the equal pay for equal work clause in the first constitution of China to reduce gender pay gap, and her proposal was adopted. She commented in a 2018 interview: "Men got 10 work points a day, but we only got a maximum of five points no matter how much work we did." To highlight the unfairness in this approach she organised a manuring contest between the male and female workers - with the female workers winning the contest. In 1953 Shen joined the Communist Party of China and gained widespread media attention due to the success of the farming cooperative. She was elected to the 1st National People's Congress in 1954 - one of four female representatives from Shanxi province. Of the 1,226 deputies to attend the first congress only 147 were women. She was the only person to have been elected to every session of the National People's Congress having been returned to the 13th National People's Congress in 2018. In 1973 she became director of the Shanxi Women's Federation, a position she held for ten years, before returning to her home village of Xigou in 1983. During this period China was establishing a market economy and Jilan established herself as an entrepreneur in the local economy. She helped establish a ferroalloy plant, walnut oil factory and cannery in the local area. She was also an integral part of a reforestation plan in Xigou. In 2008, she was chosen as an Olympic torch carrier as part of the buildup to the 2008 Summer Olympics. It was reported by local media that she donated 10,000 Chinese yuan to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake relief. In 2013 her calls for widespread internet regulation were met with controversy by younger people in China. In 2019 she was awarded the highest order of honour in China, the Medal of the Republic. She died on 28 June 2020 at the age of 90, from stomach cancer.
Personal life
Shen was married to Zhang Hailiang, a veteran of the Korean War and later became director of Changzhi Municipal Urban Construction Bureau. The couple had one son and two daughters, in order of birth: Zhang Lizhen, Zhang Jiangping, and Zhang Jiang'e.
