International Women's Day 2025

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Saturday, 08 March 2025 11:58

International Women's Day

Message from EMPOWER, 8 March 2025

EMPOWER joins women and girls all over the world in celebrating International Women’s Day. The struggle for equality, parity and justice is unfinished and together with feminists and progressive civil society, we commit to continuing the struggle.

It’s perhaps opportune to pause and look back at where we are in Malaysia. Decades of activism by civil society organisations have made significant gains in bringing about a measure of progress: the passing of the Domestic Violence Act 1994, Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017, Anti-Sexual Harassment Act 2022, Housewives Social Security Act 2022, and amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code to make stalking a crime all count towards moving us in the right direction. Women and girls are claiming equal rights everywhere from badminton courts to boardrooms.

Let’s be clear though, it’s still a struggle: the lack of gender awareness training, clear implementing guidelines and actual enforcement of these various Acts on the ground pose obstacles to real improvements in the security and lives of girls and women.

The reality? From domestic violence (over 5,000 cases recorded annually since 2015; women form 75% of victims; over 95% of perpetrators are husbands or ex-husbands), sexual abuse, harassment, unequal access to job opportunities, low and unequal pay (17.8% less on average after adjusting for age, occupation, skills, education, states and sectors ), unequal access to health care including sexual reproductive health, child marriage (881 under-aged marriages registered under Syariah system from 2022 to 2024 ), low labour-force participation rate (women: 56%, men: 82%, in 2023), acting as reserve cheap labour (hired when needed, fired when not) to unpaid care work for husbands, children and aged parents - ALL OF WHICH ADD UP TO RE-PRODUCING A MASCULINIZED ECONOMY AND A PATRIARCHAL SOCIAL STRUCTURE.

The World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI) places Malaysia, a high middle-income country, 114th out of 146 nations. We dropped 12 places from 2023 rankings. Many SE Asian countries like the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, and even Brunei and Timor Leste are ahead of us, making us 2nd last in ASEAN. Of the 4 measures (Economic Participation and Opportunity; Educational Attainment; Health and Survival and Political Empowerment) that go into our overall score, our placing on Political Participation is a dismal 134th!

When women make up just 13.5% of the Dewan Rakyat and 12.2% of ADUN, we can clearly see why! The imbalance of power in the legislatures of the country underscores why our progress in women’s emancipation and gender equality has been slow. This in spite of our various pronouncements of support to the 1995 Beijing Platform of Action.

EMPOWER with the support of JAG, BERSIH and CSOP4R have embarked on the Projek30% two-pronged Campaign to 1) secure commitments from all Malaysian political parties to field at least 30% women candidates at both Parliamentary and State Assembly elections, and, 2) enact appropriate legislation to require political parties to field at least 30% women candidates in their state and parliamentary lists, with both prongs by GE16 (ca 2027).

Enough talk. Let’s join forces to make Projek30% happen.

IN SOLIDARITY & STRUGGLE

EMPOWER

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