‘Have more women as decision-makers’ levels’

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WOMEN EMPOWERMENT: Fatimah (centre) with participants of the Women Director Training Programme.

KUCHING: More needs to be done to promote gender equality to strengthen women’s representation and allow women equal access to decision-making positions at all levels of society.

Highlighting this yesterday, Minister of Women, Family and Community Development Datuk Fatimah Abdullah said women still face significant barriers to full and equal participation in the structures and institutions governing their lives.

“As such, several crucial measures must be taken to provide an enabling environment that allows women to engage in decision-making processes in an effective way,” she said.

“This is also to ensure Malaysia can achieve the target of women comprising at least 30 percent of those in decision-making positions in the corporate sector by 2016,” added Fatimah.

“Among them are changing stereotypes and perceptions,” she suggested at the certificate presentation ceremony for Women Directors’ Training Programme held at Hilton Hotel here.

Cultural and structural factors, Fatimah said, posed a barrier to women’s advancement in their pursuit of managerial careers.

“The inequality between men and women perpetuates itself because it is internalised through social perception,” she added.

However, she noted that it was not an easy task to change perceptions as stereotypes and negative assumptions towards women are complex factors with roots in historical and cultural processes.

She stressed that gender inequality is not just a women’s issue but one which affects both genders.

“Solving it takes commitment and support from everybody,” she said, calling for all experts, academicians, policy makers, corporate sector and interested groups to work hand-in-hand in ensuring gender will always be part of the agenda in any struggle.

Any attempt to change perceptions of women should involve policymakers, implementers as well as civil and private service personnel particularly top managers and decision makers.

“Gender awareness should be introduced and strengthened at all levels to narrow disparity and encourage equality of opportunity,” she said.

“It also involves a change in employment policies that enables development of women’s potential and skills,” Fatimah added.

According to Fatimah, statistics indicated that the number of qualified women at the decision-making level in Sarawak is still low at only 12.3 percent in the public sector with no data for the corporate sector.

“Since the figure for the state is not available, I would safely assume that based on the achievement in the public sector, our achievement in the corporate sector would still be very much lower,” she added.

As such, much needs to be done to empower women to overcome the obstacles which prevent them participating on an equal footing with men through a combination of education, training and networking.

On the national level, participation of women in the public sector has reached 32 percent, slightly above its 30 percent target set in 2009.

In the corporate sector, Malaysia targets 30 percent women participation by 2016 but the current national figure stands at only 8.4 percent.

Fatimah hopes an accelerated progress can be achieved to ensure targets could be met by 2016.

“A budget of RM10 million is available this year to support women’s roles which includes training 500 women under this programme,” she revealed.

In addition, Fatimah encouraged the provision of support facilities to assist women employees to more effectively balance work and family roles.

“New work structures and initiated ‘family-friendly’ policies should be introduced like the setting up of childcare centres at the workplace, flexi time, job-sharing and parental leave,” she said.

The Women Directors’ Programme, introduced last year, has benefitted 452 participants to date.

The programme was organised by NAM Institute for the Empowerment of Women (NIEW) in collaboration with the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry, Malaysian Directors Academy (Minda), Lead Women and Sarawak Women’s Biro and the Welfare Department.

It aimed to increase the number of women at board level and create a pool of credible women with experience, knowledge and skills to be listed in a directory that can be accessed by companies looking for potential board members.

Also present were Ministry of Welfare, Women and Community Development permanent secretary Rodziah Morshidi, State Social Welfare Department director Noriah Ahmad, NIEW director Tan Sri Datuk Dr Rafiah Salim, Minda CEO/executive director Datuk Abdul Aziz Abu Bakar and Lead Women CEO Anne Abraham.