PETALING JAYA: The Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG) has welcomed the Penang state government’s “Top-Up Women-Only Additional Seats” (TWOAS) initiative.
JAG is a coalition of 14 women’s rights organisations in Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, and Sarawak that have been advocating for gender equality and social justice in Malaysia since 1985
“This is a bold, innovative and much needed measure to increase women’s representation in the state legislative assembly to a minimum critical mass of 30%. Malaysia is far behind in its obligations to uphold equality for women in political life.
“Over 25 years after the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and Malaysia’s accession to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1995, and despite open commitments to minimum 30% women’s representation by certain political parties, only 14.4% of our Members of Parliament are women. None of our 13 states have achieved minimum 30% women’s representation in their respective legislative assemblies, with the closest being Perlis at 26.7%, followed by Selangor (21.4%), Johor (16.1%) and Penang at 15.0%,” JAG said in a statement.
They noted that detractors of TWOAS, such as Penang Gerakan Wanita who insist the issue could be resolved if political parties were to nominate more women candidates for election, fail to appreciate how severely unequal the playing field is for women.
“In reality, women face multiple obstacles to participating in political life, including structural barriers such as exclusion at the party level, lack of social and family support, cultural backlash in the form of sexism and misogyny, and capacity gaps where they are less likely than men to have the education, contacts and resources needed to make it in the game,” they said, pointing out that the current system was clearly not working and something needs to be done.
JAG added temporary special measures such as TWOAS are a critical strategy towards levelling the playing field for women in politics.
“They are in fact part of Malaysia’s state obligations as a party to CEDAW. In February 2018, the CEDAW Committee recommended that the Malaysian government expand the use of temporary special measures such as allocation of resources, numerical goals with time frames, and quota systems, to accelerate gender equality in areas where women continue to be underrepresented or disadvantaged.
“Such measures are not designed to go on indefinitely, but up until a certain point where gender balance is better achieved. JAG calls upon the federal government and other state governments in Malaysia to adopt TWOAS and or other similar temporary special measures to accelerate the increase of women’s political representation in Parliament and all state legislative assemblies,”they said.
They added that while they understand that under TWOAS, appointments will be made in accordance with the percentage of votes received by parties in state elections, they take seriously concerns that this could be open to abuse of power which undermines democracy.
“Hence, JAG also calls for a transparent and public monitoring mechanism to be put into place to check and balance the appointment and performance of additional women representatives under TWOAS. Such a mechanism should include termination options in the event of misconduct or non-performance. Just as voters can vote out elected representatives, appointed leaders must similarly be held fully and unequivocally accountable to the electorate,” they said.
Last but not least, JAG noted that appointed women leaders under TWOAS must be able to advance women’s rights in real and practical ways and calls for women’s and civil society groups working directly on issues on the ground to be consulted in the TWOAS appointment and monitoring process.
“We look forward to working together with both federal and state governments to advance women’s equality in politics,” they said.
