My name is Noorfadilla Ahmad Saikin and I was a victim of gender discrimination by the government. On Jan 12, seven years ago, back in 2009, I was offered a job as Untrained Relief Teacher or Guru Sandaran Tidak Terlatih. On the same day, I was also terminated from the job due to my pregnancy, along with two other women. The child that I was pregnant with during that time, just entered Year One last week.
I have filed a case against the government since May 2010 at Shah Alam High Court with the help of Edmund Bon, Honey Tan and YB Zuraidah Kamaruddin. On July 13, 2011, we had won the case. The government appealed the Shah Alam High Court decision on Aug 3, 2011. The government did not request for a case management date from the Court of Appeal, thus the case was buried for 23 months without any follow-up by the government.
Then on July 27, 2013, the case was heard at the Court of Appeal, but the government withdrew the case in front of the judges, thus making the previous decision from the Shah Alam High Court as final.
It was decided by Shah Alam High Court - Justice Zaleha Yusof, back in 2011, the act to terminate me from the job due to pregnancy is unconstitutional. But it was not enough. The decision is not a punishment or deterrence to the government not to repeat the same offence. We have to file for damages, even though we felt it’s not going to be much. We went back to the Shah Alam High Court for damage assessment.
On Sept 18, 2013, Joachim Xavier and Honey Tan filed for the damages. After more than 1 year of case management, the court award another landmark judgment. I was awarded RM300,000.00 for breach of the constitution by the Shah Alam High Court - Senior Deputy Court Registra Ahmad Rizki Abdul Jalil, on Nov 10, 2014.
On Dec 24, 2014, the government then appealed on the damages awarded. Another few more months gone by and the damage assessment appeal was finally heard in front of another judge on June 30, 2015.
The court set a date of Aug 17, 2015 for the decision. But on Aug 17, 2015, the court still had not made up its mind. The decision has been postponed to an unspecified date until today. I have no idea when this case will end.
It has been a very lengthy journey to seek justice. I was victimised twice, once on Jan 12, 2009, and the second time is during my course of seeking justice.
Even after a decision has been given by the court, and even after the government kept saying that they are for gender equality in international forums, the actual fact is that the government is not willing to admit that they are mistaken, that they have breached the constitution, that they have discriminated against women in the country.
I can say this much, as I have read the government’s defence during the damage assessment trial and on the appeal for the damages awarded. The government also appealed on things which are beyond the scope of appeal, i.e. the interest rate of the damages, which was decided back in July 2011 and was not challenged in the Court of Appeal back in July 2013.
I hope the Shah Alam High Court would soon made up its mind and uphold justice. I also hope that the government will admit that they have indeed breached the constitution and discriminated against pregnant women and make amends. Gender discrimination is not a myth. It is something real. The public sector, the private sector and the society needs to take this seriously.
Women are only 13pct of all parliamentarians
We have only 23 women MPs in the Dewan Rakyat, that is only 10 percent of the 222 MPs in the Dewan Rakyat. Then in the Dewan Negara, we have only about 17 women senators, which is about 24 percent of the 70 senators in the Dewan Negara. In all, there are only about 40 women parliamentarians or 13 percent out of 292 MPs and senators.
The lack of women representative in Parliament shows that women have little say in the country. Although women makes up about 46 percent of the total workforce in the country, we only have about 40 parliamentarians.
Many studies have been conducted, and one common conclusion is that women tends to leave the workforce early. Why? I would say that we have very little voice in the country. Women could not make laws or policies to promote gender equality. Even the male MPs would utter words to degrade women MPs in the Parliament during the debate.
We need to change our ways in order to achieve gender equality, where women and men can work side by side by respecting each other and bringing this nation to greater heights for a better future for our children.
