We, the undersigned NGOs, are delighted and encouraged with Aiman Athirah’s call on Sunday, 13 October to introduce legislation to mandate all political parties to nominate at least 30% women in all future elections.
As head of the women’s wing of Pakatan Harapan and of Amanah’s Awan wing, as well as sitting MP of Sepang, her leadership in making this call is timely, apt and welcome.
It is the right step towards gender equality in Malaysia. We thank her for her leadership.
Aiman further outlined how the process can be kicked off: through either a ministerial memorandum or note that can be presented to the cabinet for immediate consideration and support.
She proposed that this can come from either the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development or the ministry of law and institutional reform in the Prime Minister’s Department.
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We call on Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who has espoused his commitment to gender equality as part of his reform agenda, to heed this call from Aiman and instruct his cabinet to get the ball rolling now so that a legislated quota law will be in place before the next general election, expected in 2027 or 2028.
Civil society is ever ready to engage with any arm of government to make this happen.
How did we get here?
Women and girls make up about 50% of our population. The issues, challenges and barriers that keep them from reaching their full potential remain largely unresolved.
From domestic violence, sexual abuse, harassment, unequal access to job opportunities, low and unequal pay, unequal access to healthcare including sexual reproductive health, child marriage, low labour-force participation rate (women: 52%, men: 78%, in 2023), acting as reserve cheap labour (hired when needed, let go when not) to unpaid care work for husbands, children and aged parents – these all add up to reproducing masculinised and patriarchal socioeconomic and political structures.
Decades of activism by civil society organisations have made significant gains in bringing about a measure of changes through amendments to laws related to rape (1987), Domestic Violence Act 1994, Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017, the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act 2022, the Housewives Social Security Act 2022 and amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code to make stalking a crime.
Even then, the lack of gender awareness training, unclear implementation guidelines and no actual monitoring of enforcement of these various acts and policies pose obstacles to real impactful and meaningful improvements in the security and quality of life for these women and girls.
More needs to be done to support and uplift women and girls in bridging the gap of their current status and empowerment for them to embrace achieving meaningful gender equality in all aspects of their lives in Malaysia.
All of society benefits when half the population achieves actual equality.
A key impediment to achieving this progress is not having a critical mass of women representatives in the halls of power: Parliament, the state legislative assemblies and local municipal councils (the last, currently unelected).
Women comprise 13.5% in the House of Representatives and 12.2% in the state legislative assemblies. There is no comprehensive data on how many women councillors there are in our town halls.
The Global Gender Gap Index 2024 dropped Malaysia into the bottom quartile; 12 places (down from the 2023 rankings) to 114th out of 146 countries. We have now fallen behind most of our Southeast Asian neighbours that had begun to climb the rankings surpassing Malaysia.
Whilst we have creditable scores in economic participation and opportunity (0.634, ranked 102nd), educational attainment (1.000, first) and health and survival (0.969, 80th) which can be improved and consolidated, our political empowerment score is a dismal 0.068 placing us at 134th!
Malaysia’s position
Malaysia has made commitments to achieving this 30% goal. The Ninth Malaysia Plan (2006-2010) para 13.21 stated: “Recognising the important role of women in national development, the Government agreed to implement the quota of at least 30 percent of decision-making positions in the public sector to be held by women”.
The Pelan Tindakan Pembangunan Wanita [Women’s Development Action Plan] 2009, Chapter 12: objective 1 states: “Mencapai sekurang-kurangnya 30 peratus wanita di peringkat pembuat keputusan di semua peringkat dalam semua sektor.”
Objective 2 reads: “Meningkatkan jumlah wanita sebagai pembuat keputusan kepada sekurang-kurangnya 30 peratus di semua peringkat dalam bidang politik.”
Each objective is replete with strategies and specific tabulated, numbered subobjectives and actions with responsible ministries listed.
Subobjective 2.1 cuts to the chase: “Mencapai sekurang kurangnya 30% wanita di Dewan Undangan Negeri, Dewan Rakyat dan Dewan Negara.”
Pakatan Harapan had made a pledge to increase women’s political representation to a minimum of 30% as one of five of Pakatan Harapan’s “special commitments for women” to “democratise the political system to create more female leaders”.
Note also that the government has fully accepted recommendations at the UN Universal Periodic Review process (at the fourth cycle on 25 January 2024 in Geneva) to have at least 30% women’s participation in leadership and decision-making.
What’s next
The time for action is now. The fact that Malaysian political parties, to a large extent, have been slow to level the playing field for women means we need to take a different and more top-down strategy to drive change: amend the electoral law and make it a requirement.
In a globalised world, we now recognise more than ever the diversity of women’s identities, including women and girls across different races, ethnicities, religion, SOGIESC [sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics -often pronounced “soh-jee-esque”] and diverse disabilities.
Women and girls in Malaysia must not be left behind in this global shift; therefore, it is crucial that these intersectional lens are also reflected in our political landscape to ensure equitable representation and meaningful progress.
Since the 1995 Beijing Declaration, more than 60 countries have legislated quotas in some shape or form to good effect: for example, Indonesia, Timor Leste, India, Pakistan, France, Mexico and Costa Rica.
Therefore, the undersigned NGOs respectfully urge Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to instruct his cabinet to move forward with drafting and proposing parliamentary amendments to the electoral laws which would mandate that all political parties field at least 30% women candidates at state and federal elections and, implement this new law by the next general election in 2027 or 2028.
List of supporting NGOs:
- Persatuan Kesedaran Komuniti Selangor (Empower)
- Tenaganita
- Family Frontiers
- Persatuan Sahabat Wanita Selangor
- Undi18
- All Women’s Action Society (Awam)
- Bersih
- Woman’s Aid Organisation (WAO)
- AWL
- Martabat Untuk Semua Petaling Jaya
- Women’s Centre for Change, Penang (WCC)
- Sisters In Islam (SIS)
- Sabah Women’s Action-Resources Group (Sawo)
- Aliran
- Autism Inclusiveness Direct Action Group (Aida)
- Beyond Borders Malaysia
- Pergerakan Tenaga Akademik Malaysia (Gerak)
- Persatuan Pemangkin Kesedaran Sosial
- Terabai Kenyalang Heritage Association of Sarawak (TKHAS)
- Society of Entrepreneurial Educational Development (Seed)
- Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ)
- Sarawak Women for Women Society (SWWS)
- Reproductive Rights Advocacy Alliance Malaysia
- Project Stability and Accountability for Malaysia (Projek Sama)
- Persatuan Promosi Hak Asasi Manusia (Proham)
- Pusat Komas
- Engage
- MyDigitalConsumer
- Agora Society
- North South Initiative
- Congress Gombak
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