WHILE some of the initiatives for women under Budget 2022 were commendable, women’s welfare groups say the majority them lacked clarity.

Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz unveiled a total of RM280.3 million for several initiatives to support and encourage women to participate in the workforce in the budget which he tabled in Parliament today.

Sisters In Islam told The Malaysian Insight that further analysis is required to ascertain the total amount that is budgeted for women, indigenous, disabled and minority communities, and children in Malaysia, as well as how the budget is allocated in terms of addressing their economic, housing, education, health, and employment needs. 

Under Budget 2022, there are funds allocated to boost women’s participation in the economic sector, help women entrepreneurs affected by Covid-19 as well as to increase their business capacity, and the MyKasih Kapital programme to encourage women to generate income from home.

Putrajaya also allocated RM13 million to empower D11, the special police unit overseeing sexual crimes against women and children as well as increase social support centres for domestic violence victims.

“For this budget, however, we do not see any allocations for impact assessment on how the pandemic is linked to various crimes against women and children, nor the setting up of data management centres and training of officers to collect and carry out gender analysis for more gender-sensitive policies in the future,” SIS said.

In September, the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry revealed in the Dewan Rakyat that 9,015 cases of domestic violence were reported since the movement control order was first enforced in March 2020.

SIS also said the MyKasih Kapital programme would only benefit up to 2,000 single mothers when the number of single mothers in Malaysia exceeds this number.

“Whether the budget addressed the structural poverty issues faced by single-parent households affected by the pandemic remains to be seen,” the women’s rights group said. 

The Woman’s Aid Organisation (WAO) in a press statement said the budget addressed violence against women in a piecemeal manner.

It did not demonstrate any bold initiatives to capitalise on fundamental and existing inequality issues, said WAO’s executive director, Sumitra Visvanathan.

“There are some noteworthy announcements, for example, investments in D11 PDRM, addressing period poverty, mandating public listed companies to appoint one woman to the board and expanding social protection to the informal sector.

“We did not see an increase in investment in childcare, despite the lack of childcare being a major impediment for women’s work – a challenge which Covid-19 had exacerbated.” 

She said besides investments in D11, there were no indication of increasing investments for crucial services like One-Stop Crisis Centres in public hospitals or an increase in JKM officers. 

“Commitment to increase women’s protection shelters was announced, though the investment figure was not mentioned,” she said. 

“Overall, while we acknowledge there was some emphasis on gender in the budget, we feel this budget could have been more ambitious, especially given that already large gender gaps have worsened following the epidemic.”

The All Women’s Action Society (Awam) also echoed WAO’s concern about the vagueness of the budget on increasing shelters for domestic violence survivors.

Awam said while they appreciate the fact that the government recognised a lack of women representation in decision making positions in companies, the requirement of only one female director could be improved upon. 

“Malaysia currently stands at 25.8% for women representation in the top 100 PLCs. To truly recognise the benefits of gender diversity on decision-making quality and company financial performance, the government should adhere to its 30% boardroom representation target,” it said. 

Lastly, Awam noted that there are no budget allocations dedicated to women’s political empowerment. 

“This area of empowerment has been the least in both the Global Gender Gap Index and the Malaysia Gender Gap Index. Thus far, only 33 out of 222 (14.9%) of members of Parliament in the Dewan Rakyat are women, only five  out of 31 Ministers (15.2%) are women, and we still do not have a woman head of state. Allocations should be made for capacity-building programmes of aspiring and current women political leaders.” – October 29, 2021.