LAST month, Malaysia was elected to the UN Human Right Council (UNHRC) for the term 2022-2024. It is good news for Malaysia as UNHRC is responsible for the promotion and protection of human rights.  

As a woman, gender equality is a human rights issue that concerns me the most. For instance, the recent court ruling in favour of citizenship to overseas-born children of Malaysian women, is a good effort to close the gender equality gap in our country. 

Malaysia had already ratified the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw) in 1995. Therefore, the government has to adopt appropriate legislation to address the violation of women’s rights as stipulated in Cedaw, and at the same time eliminate gender gaps in Malaysia. 

Some who say that we are living in the 21st century may be inclined to believe most gender issues have been addressed by the Gender Equality Act, but the law has yet to be passed by Parliament.  

In fact, some gender issues still linger and reflect the living realities and daily experience of Malaysians. 

According to the Labour Force Survey 2020, female labour force participation rate was only 55.3% compared to 80.6% for men last year. 

Few reasons often cited are the requirement of parental or partner’s consent to employment in some families, as well as pregnancy discrimination. These are still prevalent, whether in the public or private sector. 

Most Malaysian women are not burdened with household duties or family responsibilities to the extent these factors adversely affect their professional careers, while pregnancy discrimination on the part of the employers would obviously impact the career path of the affected women.

Malaysia has also failed to criminalise marital rape, as well as decrease the occurrence of child marriage.  

That said, there are some signs of improvement after 26 years of ratifying Cedaw. 

Women politicians now take up 14.9% of the seats in Parliament compared with 10 years ago, which was 10.4%. 

The number of female Dewan Rakyat representatives has been increasing over the years, although more policy implementation is required to fulfil the obligations of Cedaw in this country.

What is Cedaw?

Cedaw is one of the core international human rights treaties in the United Nations treaty system that requires a member state to undertake legal obligations to respect, protect and fulfil human rights. 

Cedaw mainly focuses on women rights, consisting of 30 articles that clearly state the aspects of women rights.

However, Malaysia has reservations over certain articles, such as Articles 9 (Citizenship) (2), 16(1)(a), (c), (f) and (g). In this regard, women are entitled to substantive equality without discrimination. In fact, a member state is also required to achieve full compliance of the treaty with an action plan.  

To ensure this, the member state is subjected to review by the UN every four years and civil societies can participate in the review process by submitting reports on the government’s compliance with Cedaw.  

This reporting system and process provide opportunities for the civil society organisations to express their views and arguments by sending a shadow report, for those who do not have access to government reports.  

This reporting mechanism enables Cedaw committees to obtain views from civil society groups in respective countries. This shows the democratic nature and open system of the convention towards achieving its objectives and principles.  

The latest report from Malaysian civil societies was in 2019, titled “The Status of Women’s Human Rights: 24 years of CEDAW in Malaysia”.  

This report mentioned the contrast and gaps between Cedaw and the existing laws in Malaysia, apart from offering recommendations. The report also noted how the shariah legal system often gives rise to injustice to women in Malaysia.  

The report also highlighted the recent cases of discrimination against Malaysian women with regard to automatic entitlement of Malaysian citizenship of their children born abroad through marriage with foreigners. 

The government has reservations about Article 9 on citizenship under Cedaw because it considers it contradictory to provisions in the Federal Constitution and shariah law. 

It should instead consider withdrawing all reservations and amend the relevant laws to indicate its political will to eliminate discrimination against all women (Muslim women, in particular) in Malaysia and uphold the objective of the convention.

More action plan executions needed

However, after 26 years of ratifying Cedaw and the National Policy on Women, Malaysia still has no laws in its push towards gender equality, such as Gender Equality Act and Sexual Harassment Act. 

These two laws would serve as an important legal basis and therefore help enforce mechanisms that can deal with sex-based discrimination. Thus, any form of gender segregation or limitation, which deliberately or unintentionally invalidates or harms the recognition and exercise of women cultural, social and economic rights in Malaysia, should be made illegal and unacceptable in our society.

According to the “Monitoring Report: Gender Equality in Malaysia” in 2021 by Asia-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women and the Federation of Reproductive Health Associations Malaysia, the government had pledged to enact the Gender Equality Act. However, efforts have been unsuccessful.  

The government has often prematurely terminated or halted any further progress towards enacting a law without good reason. This time round, the same situation might apply to the Sexual Harassment Bill. 

Another harmful practice against women and girls is child marriage. The same report showed there is no straightforward legislative framework that governs child marriages in Malaysia.  

This is because we are practising three different legal systems with their own set of exceptions. Therefore, the government should implement Cedaw, to raise the minimum age of marriage to 19 for women and men in both Muslim and non-Muslim marriages. 

Given that Malaysia has ratified Cedaw, relevant laws still need to be in place while more implementation and stronger enforcement of current legislation and policies are needed to ensure gender equality is achieved. 

There should be no laws or practices that discriminate against women in public and private sectors, as well as in the larger society. It is hoped that Cedaw would ensure that women are accorded the rights they deserve. – November 29, 2021.

* Esther Sinirisan Chong is a member of Agora Society. She was born and raised in the Land Below the Wind. Her research interest lies in education and government policies, and the history and heritage of East Malaysia.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.