LETTER | For the All Women’s Action Society (Awam), the celebrations of International Women’s Day 2020 (IWD 2020) in Malaysia is a bittersweet one.
Beyond the obvious reasons of celebrating women for their many achievements and creating awareness about the plight of women who still have to fight for most basic of rights, IWD 2020 in Malaysia also marks a period of:
- A spike in Covid 19 cases.
- Where the country gained a new Prime Minister without the mandate of the people.
- And significantly for all women ( and men) in this country, the final act of legislating the Sexual Harassment Act will clearly not materialise this month, due to the delay in the Parliamentary session to May 2020.
Hours and hours were spent by a number of stakeholders, not limited to the women’s groups, scrutinising sexual harassment laws from other countries, to pick out the best regulations that would fit the Malaysian context as well as meeting after meeting was held at Putrajaya to draft out a workable bill, and then, in turn, to review each line of the draft bill to ensure that loopholes were closed and that the laws of sexual harassment would work within our country’s legal, social and cultural systems.
Awam and the other women’s groups strived to ensure that as many people as possible were aware of the potential sexual harassment bill. It must be noted that we received very positive responses to the bill, by both men and women alike. Merely by its creation and enactment, the bill would have placed Malaysia amongst the likes of the UK, US, Australia and Japan (all of whom have stand-alone sexual harassment laws).
For this International Women’s Day, Awam would like to appeal to the powers that be to be aware of how much social policies such as the sexual harassment bill could contribute to the positive development of the country. It would have paved the foundation for a physically safer and mentally healthier rakyat. Mental stress and depression are direct effects of sexual harassment.
Furthermore, social policies promote social trust. When society feels safe with each other, they are further encouraged to work together, and this leads to better democratic institutions, more growth in the economy and less crime and corruption. This form of social capital is the security that Malaysia needs in our current troubled and uncertain times.
It is acknowledged that sexual harassment is a huge social ill in Malaysia. From 2017 to 2019, 55 people, three of whom were men, came to Awam for our free counselling and legal information services, because they had been sexually harassed, mainly by their superiors at work.
The police have openly reported that sexual harassment happens in our public schools, where the youngest victim was seven-years-old. In fact, from January to September 2019, 186 cases of sexual harassment involved school going kids from seven to 18 years old.
A survey of 1002 Malaysians carried out by YouGov Omnibus revealed that 1-in-4 Malaysians are sexually harassed at some point in their lives - of which 26.6 percent were harassed in a public place. Police also noted that between 2013 -2017, 21 percent of reported cases of sexual harassment involved men.
Social policies like the sexual harassment bill offers people the option to be treated fairly and equally. Ensuring that the sexual harassment bill is passed this year will also work hand in hand with IWD 2020’s theme of "I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights".
International Women’s Day is not a cause of celebration and reflection only by women but all people for two reasons. Firstly, gender norms are no longer fixed and we are all intertwined in each other lives and secondly, supporting women literally means supporting society as a whole.
Despite all that has happened in recent weeks, Awam’s 35 years of experience in advocating women’s rights has taught us to find the silver lining in our no-government cloud. Sometimes you have to work with what you have.
Regardless of who will become our prime minister after May 2020, the powers that be should use this excellent opportunity to look into adding more female MPs into the line-up, if not immediately, at least in the long term. As of 2019, there were 33 women in federal parliament (14.9 percent), five female Ministers (17.8 percent), four female Deputy Ministers (14.8 percent) and nine women in Cabinet (16.4 percent). The last government could not meet the 30 percent quota on the representation of women in parliament.
This IWD2020, Awam would like to see consistent efforts to put in motion robust plans to reach the 30 percent quota for women in parliament. But beyond the new government, Awam would like political parties to take up this opportunity to show that they are part of generation equality and not a self-serving group of people who are immersed in archaic values of the past, and able to keep up with the present times.
Political parties should systematically implement internal strategies and/or processes that will ultimately get more women in Parliament. Awam believes that everyone - especially women - should have access to the full participation in civic and political engagement in order to ensure that we have a robust and healthy political system. This is ever more crucial in the wake of recent political events.
This is our call to all political parties to actively choose to challenge gender and other stereotypes, fight gender bias and discrimination, broaden perceptions, improve women’s access in all situations, and celebrate women's achievements. Let's learn from what we have achieved and examine how far we have left to go. Let's change for the better for the entire rakyat Malaysia.
Awam wishes all Malaysians a very happy International Women's Day.
AWAM is an independent feminist organisation committed to ending gender-based violence and upholding equality and rights for all.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
