Time to put women back on the agenda
In recent times, we have been ‘treated’ to some appalling displays of outright sexism by certain Members of Parliament, speaking both inside and outside Parliament - the ‘leaking’ comment and the ‘tunnel’ comment being but two outrageous examples. Yes, we have a lot to be proud of in Malaysia. We have more female undergraduates than we do male undergraduates. We’ve had a woman as the Governor of the Central Bank, the Solicitor-General, the Chief Astronomer as well as the Chief Judge of Malaya. But none of these achievements should mask the fact that we still have a very long way to go, and that the success of a few does not necessarily translate into empowerment for all.
Consider the fact that the current Parliament can only boast 9.6% female participation, far short of our targeted 30%. There are currently 40 State Assemblywomen as compared to 536 State Assemblymen. There is Ministerial representation, but still short of 30%. The brightest light comes from the Senate, where there is 29.6% female representation. But as we saw over the proposed Islamic Family Law Bill a few years ago, having that many women senators didn’t mean all too much, when push came to shove. That means that there was a systemic failure at an earlier level - had there been real representation in decision-making, the reservations held by many women over the provisions of the Bill would not have gone unheard.
More serious still are the statistics on violence against women. 1931 reported rape cases in 2005. 3093 reported cases of domestic violence in the same year. If we accept the general estimate that reported cases only form 20% of the actual cases, that is something like 10 000 rapes and 15 000 cases of domestic violence. This is completely unacceptable. Even if you are sceptical about the usefulness of these statistics, surely we can find common ground in agreeing that violence against women is a serious problem in Malaysia.
Think also about human trafficking and the sex industry. Estimates put the number of sex workers in Malaysia anywhere between 30 000 to 140 000 - even 30 000 is an appallingly high number. Prostitution may be the world’s oldest profession, but it is also a reflection of society’s failures. We have failed to bring down the syndicates which force women into prostitution, both local and those trafficked from abroad. We have failed to provide genuine economic alternatives to all the women forced into prostitution by economic pressures. We have failed to truly tackle organised crime - as long as organised crime exists, there will always be prostitution syndicates. We look down on sex workers, not giving them the respect they deserve, and forgetting that the men who go to them are far more deserving of our contempt; and that we must shoulder our own burden of failure as a society.
These are only three problems - there are more. Sexism in general is still very much a problem, as evidenced by our ‘leaders’ antics. Despite progress in terms of professional women, far too many women are still trapped in poverty.
What I am trying to lead to is that we need to have an ambitious agenda for the empowerment of our women. Empowerment is an over-used cliche, but it encapsulates much of what we want to achieve. No more women living in poverty. Zero tolerance of rape, domestic violence, molestation, and sexual harassment. Zero tolerance of sexism. No more women forced into prostitution, either by criminals or by economic pressures. At least 30% participation in decision-making at all levels of government, particularly Parliament, the State Assemblies and the Cabinet, as well as the civil service; and the corporate sector, with a 50% target to be put in place immediately after achieving 30%.
It will not be easy. But when it comes to putting women first, I think there is no such thing as being too ambitious. And we must remember that although such a comprehensive policy will need a lot of work, and a great deal of long-term planning, there are already some obvious things that we can do. All political parties can commit to fielding at least 30% women candidates in the next election, as well as pledging 30% Ministerial participation (including at the state government level). Sex education can be introduced in schools, and sexual respect introduced into both the Islamic and Moral studies curricula, as part of a comprehensive reform of both subjects. There are some very innovative education programmes out there - we need to do more research, and test them out to find out what works best.
Organisations such as the WAO and AWAM already do marvellous work - we need to support them even further. On domestic violence, a recent pilot project in the UK, deploying advocates to personally take up each and every reported case, has already resulted in massive reductions in incidence rates - again, we need to look very seriously at these projects, and see whether they would be viable for implementation back home. A Sexual Harassment Act is long overdue, and we need to win the case on the criminalisation of marital rape. There needs to be more cooperation between different NGOs, particularly between gender-based and faith-based organisations - I have long believed in the crucial role of religion in tackling violence against women, and faith-based activists need to embrace this fight.
Tackling prostitution will be more difficult, especially because it will have to be part of an effective attack on organised crime, which has been proved to be next to impossible in virtually every country in the world. But that does not mean that we don’t have to do it - on the contrary, instead of pretending that the problem doesn’t exist, we need to acknowledge that organised crime runs loose in our country, and we need to start doing something about it. We also need to respect all our sex workers - let us save our contempt and disgust for the pimps and customers who perpetuate this tragedy of sexual enslavement.
Our leaders need to embrace the cause of Malaysian women, and make it a central plank of our national agenda. And we must be the ones to make sure they do exactly that. We have failed our sisters long enough - tis’ past time we made it up to them. 1400 years ago, the Prophet Muhammad p.b.u.h. began the process of empowering our sisters; yet for most of that time, we have forgotten the spirit of his teachings, and preferred to enslave rather than empower. Let us not repeat the same mistake - start making a change NOW.
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