LAST week, the world marked the 107^th anniversary of International Women’s Day with events and activities to celebrate progress in women’s rights and in gender parity.

Since its inauguration in Central Europe at the turn of the 20^th century, International Women’s Day has expanded to a global dimension, involving women from both the developed and developing countries. The focus is on issues ranging from outright forms of abuse, like domestic violence, sexual harassment and rape, to more egalitarian issues, such as unequal political representation, the gender wage gap and prejudice against women leaders in the workplace.

Discrimination against women still remains a common reality in most societies and cultures. Where the realities differ, is in the form and extent of discrimination, how far it is acknowledged, and how much action is taken to challenge and overcome these entrenched problems.  

In some parts of the world, the push to improve conditions for women has been gradual, marked by low-key grassroots movements that built up slow and laborious momentum over the years. In other areas, action has came about more swiftly, energised by revolutionary ‘tipping points’ that catapulted issues to the forefront.

The most recent example of a ‘tipping point’ happened last year in the United States, when a New York Times’ investigative report into sexual harassment allegations against Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein, opened up the floodgates to thousands of  sexual harassment and misconduct occurring within Hollywood film industry.

Not long after the Harvey Weinstein incident, another wave of reports on sexual harassment surfaced, this time in the form of heinous sex abuse scandals committed by USA Olympics Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, who had victimised over 160 female athletes.

These scandals caused ripples of change within the American consciousness and across the world. Aside from unleashing public criticism against sexual predators, it also catapulted the rise of the #Metoo movement on social media to empower victimised women.

While these are encouraging outcomes, they came too little too late for Weinstein and Nassar’s victims, who battled shame, guilt and depression for years while their predators’ crimes went unchecked and unnoticed.

In Malaysia, sexual harassment is not a new issue. In the past year alone, there were reports of male politicians casually passing lewd remarks onto their women counterparts in Parliament and an airlines company making female job applicants strip down to their underwear for “grooming checks”.

Moreover, female victims who try to speak up are often side-lined and even accused of exaggerating. A case in point would be the experience of Lembaga Tabung Haji worker Asmah Mohd Nor, who fought a long and painful court battle (six years, 10 months and 4 days in total) for reporting a superior who had spoken and acted indecently towards her. In retaliation, the superior had sued her for defamation and the case was escalated all the way to the Federal Court before justice was delivered.

Asmah’s case illustrates the length that victims must go through when they choose to report their perpetrators. Sadly, as one women’s rights-based NGO recently pointed out, sexual harassment is still disregarded and treated as a non-issue in Malaysia.

There is still no special and comprehensive law on sexual harassment in Malaysia. The closest legal redress is Section 509 of the Penal Code, which criminalises the offence of “insulting the modesty of a women”, but this been criticised by many parties as being insufficient to encompass all the elements of sexual harassment.

In the absence of legal safeguards, it is unsurprising that women still feel unsafe coming forward to report their experiences of sexual harassment.

It should not have to be this way. How long more must women continue to fight such battles unshielded?

Now that the trumpeting and fanfare of International Women’s Day has died down, let us not lose our sense of urgency to #PressforChange.

The government and policymakers must act with urgency to come up with concrete strategies to tackle sexual harassment. In particular, ensuring a fair legal process for addressing sexual harassment is paramount. Lawmakers must push for an Act that creates a fair unbiased process to address sexual harassment claims and empower survivors to fight for fair resolution of their claims.

In the workplace, employers should take a comprehensive look at the overall reporting process. There should be concerted effort to identify barriers to uncovering the facts and the truth, and to create an environment where bias is eliminated and sexual harassment claims are treated seriously and addressed promptly.

Finally, civil society has a duty to act too. We should not just retreat to the status quo and remain apathetic when it comes to combating sexual harassment. True change can only come about when there is a collective commitment to power and push that change.  

Once upon a time, it was a paradox that women should have an education, or the rights to vote. We now live in a different, more gender-inclusive world. If progress could happen in these areas, there is no reason why it cannot happen in the context of eliminating violence against women. – March 18, 2018.

* Lim Su Lin is a Policy Analyst with Penang Institute in Kuala Lumpur. She graduated in 2013 with a degree in History from Cambridge University. Her research interests lie primarily in psychosocial health and wellbeing. She explores these in the context of making recommendations to improve social and development policies. The long-term goals of her work are to advocate for more equitable outcomes and reduced inequalities in society.

* 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.