FAIRPLAY FOR WOMEN’S ISSUES
The Women's Candidacy Initiative which is focused on a fair and
democratic election and on enabling the representation of women's needs
and concerns in Parliament, deplores the statement by Dato Napsiah Omar
that opposition political parties are playing on women's issues during
their ceramahs.
Her statement presumes that women's issues are merely an election
gimmick, to be deployed to trick women voters.
Yet, some weeks ago, in the Star of Oct 4 1999, in an article headlined
"Napsiah: Women key to Power", Dato Napsiah herself identified women as
the target of the Barisan's election strategy. She pointed out how the
government had been fair to women because it had provided laws to
protect women against sexual harassment, and enabled Muslim women to get
custody of their children.
The Women's Candidacy Initiative would like to correct this
misconception: there is no law on sexual harassment.
In September, a policy on sexual harassment was issued by the
government. However it is but a policy and not as binding as a piece of
legislation. In addition, while amendments were passed to the
Guardianship Act this year, there is no parallel legislation which gives
Muslim women the same rights.
This is because Islamic Family Law is enacted by individual states and
as such, Muslim women have to wait for each state to legislate these
rights.
It must be pointed out that these developments which address injustice
to women, while indeed welcome, exist largely because women and NGOs
which deal with women's issues have lobbied and issued memoranda to the
government on numerous concerns, including sexual harassment and the
right of women to have guardianship status over their children.
It must be pointed out also that the reality is that women and their
NGOs have to do a great deal of work and often wait a long time (such as
with legislation and the gazetting of the Domestic Violence Act of 1994)
before these developments which Dato Napsiah and the government take
credit for, are actually agreed to, enacted or implemented.
As such, the Women's Candidacy Initiative asks all political parties not
to manipulate their rhetoric on women, but to make good on their
promises and claims of prioritizing women's needs and concerns.
Malaysian women voters are becoming increasingly politically conscious
of the power of their democratic right to elect representatives who will
address the unfair and discriminatory policies, laws and programmes
which burden them unjustly.
Yours sincerely,
The Women’s Candidacy Initiative
