Joint statement by Alice Lau Kiong Yeng, MP for Lanang and Steven Sim Chee Keong, MP for Bukit Mertajam
28 October 2013 | Kuala Lumpur
In Prime Minister's 2014 budget, he has announced several initiatives for women's development and welfare.
Among the salient points include, the training of 500 women to be members of board of directors, the setting up of an Akademi Inovasi Wanita, the Purple DNA Entrepreneurship Programme, the extension of childcare subsidy for civil servants with a monthly income of RM5,000 compared to RM3,000 previously, monthly nursery fees assistance of RM250 for parents in the private sector with a monthly income below RM900 and finally, free breast cancer support materials for patients.
While these initiatives are to be commended for their benefits to women, they do not deal with the root of the problems which women face today.
Culture of gender discrimination prevalent - What happened to GRB?
Firstly, the government has once again failed to address prevalent culture of discrimination especially gender discrimination.
For example, contrary to popular belief, out of 155,600 women who are unemployed, 86.3% are not married nor divorced nor widowed (Source: RMK10 report). Hence, the majority of women are not in the job market not because of marriage. There are other factors namely, salary disparity, lack of opportunity especially in job promotion, and inconducive job environment. In other words, discrimination in the work place.
While the government allocated a higher budget for the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development at RM2.2 billion in 2014 compared to RM1.9 billion in 2013, the bulk of the money goes to “hand-outs” programmes. It look as if the Ministry has chosen to focus on charity and welfare for women rather than women empowerment.
In 2003, the government piloted a programme to implement gender responsive budgeting (GRB) spearheaded by the Ministry for Women, Family and Community Development and in partnership with UNDP. Subsequently the selected Ministries were instructed to continue to implement GRB in 2006 for other agencies to follow suit. The GRB project aims to empower women and give voice to women when it comes to the allocation of resources in all areas of the government, not just seeing women as charity beneficiaries.
Now ten (10) years have passed since 2003, and despite several Treasury circulars to call for the implementation of GRB and its components, we have not seen the adoption of GRB at a comprehensive level. In his 2014 Budget speech,the Prime Minister said that the government will now shift towards an Outcome Based Budgeting (OBB). On its own, this is commendable but what happened to GRB and its objectives as stated by former Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, “ to narrow existing disparities and re-orient public expenditure to reflect the concerns for all its citizens.”?
No strategy to increase female LFPR stagnated for 23 years
Secondly, there is no systematic strategy to increase women’s labour force participation rate (LFPR) which has stagnated around 46-47% in the last 23 years since 1990 to the targeted 55% by 2015 as stipulated by the 10th Malaysian Plan (RMK10).
The half-time, part-time, flexi-time, work from home arrangement proposal in Budget 2014 were all mentioned back in RMK6, 23 years ago. The Work Regulations (Part Time Workers) was enforced in October 2010 at the start of RMK10, yet we have not seen any substantial improvement to the current situation.
The childcare assistance is limited to 1) civil servants and 2) families earning below RM900, hence its coverage is wide enough in comparison to Pakatan Rakyat Alternative Budget which proposed RM1,200 annual assistance to all working mothers as childcare assistance for children under 12 of age.
Mothers, homemakers alienated
Thirdly, there is no good news for women who chose to be stay-home mothers or homemakers. This category of women will receive no acknowledgement, incentive and security under Najib’s 2014 Budget. In comparison, the Pakatan Rakyat Alternative Budget in line with the PR GE13 Manifesto proposed a National Women’s Contribution Scheme (NWCS) as a social safety net for homemakers where the government will contribute RM600 per annum to homemakers to be complemented by contribution from the spouse at a minimum of RM120 upto RM1,200 p.a.
Double whammy of GST and withdrawal of subsidies - single headed households, low- and mid-income households will be most burdened
Fourthly, the introduction of GST at 6% will gravely affect women, especially those from single-headed household as well as low- and middle-income household. According to statistics, in 2010, there are 831,860 single mothers. They will be badly hit by the ripple effect of the sudden withdrawal of subsidies and the introduction of GST.
Sim have highlighted early a study by the Penang Institute which showed that while high income households (with monthly earning above RM30,000) pay GST at about 1.32% of their income (GSTI), the low income households (earning about RM600 monthly) and the middle income households (about RM2500 monthly) pay 2.35% GSTI and 2.67% GSTI respectively.
Conclusion
The 2014 Budget repeats a lot of old programmes which years after years cannot address the problems women faced today. Prime Minister should be brave to cross the partisan line and adopt good policies from the Pakatan Rakyat Alternative Budget especially in regards to women’s affairs. But more importantly, we hope that the government will instead address the fundamental problem, that is, the culture of discrimination in our society where women are treated as second class in all areas including in politics and the economy.
Alice Lau Kiong Yeng, Steven Sim Chee Keong
MP for Lanang MP for Bukit Mertajam
28 October 2013 | Kuala Lumpur
In Prime Minister's 2014 budget, he has announced several initiatives for women's development and welfare.
Among the salient points include, the training of 500 women to be members of board of directors, the setting up of an Akademi Inovasi Wanita, the Purple DNA Entrepreneurship Programme, the extension of childcare subsidy for civil servants with a monthly income of RM5,000 compared to RM3,000 previously, monthly nursery fees assistance of RM250 for parents in the private sector with a monthly income below RM900 and finally, free breast cancer support materials for patients.
While these initiatives are to be commended for their benefits to women, they do not deal with the root of the problems which women face today.
Culture of gender discrimination prevalent - What happened to GRB?
Firstly, the government has once again failed to address prevalent culture of discrimination especially gender discrimination.
For example, contrary to popular belief, out of 155,600 women who are unemployed, 86.3% are not married nor divorced nor widowed (Source: RMK10 report). Hence, the majority of women are not in the job market not because of marriage. There are other factors namely, salary disparity, lack of opportunity especially in job promotion, and inconducive job environment. In other words, discrimination in the work place.
While the government allocated a higher budget for the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development at RM2.2 billion in 2014 compared to RM1.9 billion in 2013, the bulk of the money goes to “hand-outs” programmes. It look as if the Ministry has chosen to focus on charity and welfare for women rather than women empowerment.
In 2003, the government piloted a programme to implement gender responsive budgeting (GRB) spearheaded by the Ministry for Women, Family and Community Development and in partnership with UNDP. Subsequently the selected Ministries were instructed to continue to implement GRB in 2006 for other agencies to follow suit. The GRB project aims to empower women and give voice to women when it comes to the allocation of resources in all areas of the government, not just seeing women as charity beneficiaries.
Now ten (10) years have passed since 2003, and despite several Treasury circulars to call for the implementation of GRB and its components, we have not seen the adoption of GRB at a comprehensive level. In his 2014 Budget speech,the Prime Minister said that the government will now shift towards an Outcome Based Budgeting (OBB). On its own, this is commendable but what happened to GRB and its objectives as stated by former Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, “ to narrow existing disparities and re-orient public expenditure to reflect the concerns for all its citizens.”?
No strategy to increase female LFPR stagnated for 23 years
Secondly, there is no systematic strategy to increase women’s labour force participation rate (LFPR) which has stagnated around 46-47% in the last 23 years since 1990 to the targeted 55% by 2015 as stipulated by the 10th Malaysian Plan (RMK10).
The half-time, part-time, flexi-time, work from home arrangement proposal in Budget 2014 were all mentioned back in RMK6, 23 years ago. The Work Regulations (Part Time Workers) was enforced in October 2010 at the start of RMK10, yet we have not seen any substantial improvement to the current situation.
The childcare assistance is limited to 1) civil servants and 2) families earning below RM900, hence its coverage is wide enough in comparison to Pakatan Rakyat Alternative Budget which proposed RM1,200 annual assistance to all working mothers as childcare assistance for children under 12 of age.
Mothers, homemakers alienated
Thirdly, there is no good news for women who chose to be stay-home mothers or homemakers. This category of women will receive no acknowledgement, incentive and security under Najib’s 2014 Budget. In comparison, the Pakatan Rakyat Alternative Budget in line with the PR GE13 Manifesto proposed a National Women’s Contribution Scheme (NWCS) as a social safety net for homemakers where the government will contribute RM600 per annum to homemakers to be complemented by contribution from the spouse at a minimum of RM120 upto RM1,200 p.a.
Double whammy of GST and withdrawal of subsidies - single headed households, low- and mid-income households will be most burdened
Fourthly, the introduction of GST at 6% will gravely affect women, especially those from single-headed household as well as low- and middle-income household. According to statistics, in 2010, there are 831,860 single mothers. They will be badly hit by the ripple effect of the sudden withdrawal of subsidies and the introduction of GST.
Sim have highlighted early a study by the Penang Institute which showed that while high income households (with monthly earning above RM30,000) pay GST at about 1.32% of their income (GSTI), the low income households (earning about RM600 monthly) and the middle income households (about RM2500 monthly) pay 2.35% GSTI and 2.67% GSTI respectively.
Conclusion
The 2014 Budget repeats a lot of old programmes which years after years cannot address the problems women faced today. Prime Minister should be brave to cross the partisan line and adopt good policies from the Pakatan Rakyat Alternative Budget especially in regards to women’s affairs. But more importantly, we hope that the government will instead address the fundamental problem, that is, the culture of discrimination in our society where women are treated as second class in all areas including in politics and the economy.
Alice Lau Kiong Yeng, Steven Sim Chee Keong
MP for Lanang MP for Bukit Mertajam
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