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Three main areas of women rights:

1. Civil rights and the legal status of women (including right to vote, to hold public office,
and right to non-discrimination in education and employment)
2. Reproductive rights (including shared responsibility for child-rearing by both sexes and
right to maternity protection and childcare and right to reproductive choice)
3. Cultural factors influencing gender relations (including need to modify traditional roles of
women and men in the family and society to eliminate gender bias; and the need to
remove gender stereotypes from school programmes, textbooks and teaching methods).

Women's Legal Status

1. Women under the Federal Constitution


The State enacts laws which are meant on the one hand, to prevent any forms of
discrimination among citizens, with regard to the laws and policies of government, and on the
other, to create positive opportunities for vulnerable groups to be able to participate in
development processes.

In Malaysia, there are two sources of laws, written and unwritten laws. The written laws
comprise the Federal constitution, legislation enacted by parliament, and subsidiary
legislation prepared under powers conferred by Parliament and State Assemblies. Unwritten
laws consist of English common law suitable to local circumstance, judicial decisions of the
Supreme Court, and local customary laws. Since Independence in 1957, Malaysian women's
rights as citizens to participate in the political and administrative life of the nation have been
recognized and guaranteed by the Federal Constitution, which states under Article 8, clause 1,
that " all persons are equal before the law and entitled to the equal protection of the law".

Clause 2 further provides that "except as expressly authorized by this Constitution, there shall
be no discrimination against citizens on the ground only of religion, race, descent, or place of
birth in any law or in the appointment to any office or employment under a public authority or
in the administration of any law relating to the acquisition, holding or disposition of any
property or the establishing or carrying on of any trade, business, profession, vocation, or
employment".

The Federal Constitution thus contains no specific provision against gender-based


discrimination, as opposed to other types of discrimination based upon religion, race, descent
or place of birth, which are expressly stated in the Constitution. The omission of gender from
among the categories is increasingly regarded as significant, and needing change, inasmuch as
it allows for the existence of provisions that provide for protective discrimination against
women in the Employment Act, and avoids elimination of alleged discrimination under
Islamic laws.
Laws Affecting Women

1. Citizenship and Permanent Residence


Under the Federal Constitution, both men and women are equally competent to acquire
citizenship by means of the law, through registration, or naturalization. Under Article 15 of
the Constitution, no conditions were imposed upon foreign wives of citizens from applying
for citizenship to the registering authority. However by a subsequent amendment made in
1962, conditions are imposed upon such acquisition of citizenship, including "good
character".

By another amendment in Clause (2) of Article 15, citizenship rights could be acquired by
any child of a citizen. This amendment put women on par with men as regards the automatic
citizenship of children born to them. However, discrimination remains as regards acquisition
of citizenship rights by foreign spouses of Malaysian women. This can be related to the view
that upon marriage a woman should follow her husband and not vice versa. There is a
growing demand among educated Malaysian women that the policy requires to be changed in
order to reflect women's increasing participation in education, and in the economy, and their
contribution to the advancement of the country. It is feared that if the policy is not changed,
highly skilled and educated women may leave the country in search of other opportunities
simply as their foreign husbands cannot stay in the country. This would militate against the
country's need for a highly skilled and increasingly technically competent labor force.

How equal are women in Malaysia?


Despite the Government's commitment to women's equality, the monitoring of
different state parties' obligations to equality is essential. The State often does not
have the same access as NGOs to women 'on the ground' who experience
discrimination. Women's groups and NGOs in Malaysia have a vital role to highlight
areas where women continue to face discrimination - to lobby for changes that will
remove barriers to women's equality in all spheres of women's lives.

1. Women, Culture and Religion


The different religions and cultures of Malaysia have many positive aspects in women's lives.
However, it is also the case that women are discriminated against by their religions and
cultures, which perpetuate stereotyped gender roles and protectionist and patriarchal attitudes
towards women.

The family remains culturally at the centre of Malaysian life. A 1999 WAO
report, 'Monitoring the Fulfilment of the Malaysian Government's Obligation to Women's
Equality: A Baseline Report on marriage and Divorce', shows how Malaysian women face
much discrimination in the area of marriage and divorce, through attitudes towards expected
roles of women, and through the formulation, interpretation and implementation laws.
Within marriage, many women are expected to remain in the home, as homemakers and
mothers. If women are given the choice to work, many are forced to give their salaries to their
husbands. Many women who work before marriage have been ordered to give up their jobs
when they marry. The re-naming of the Ministry of Women's Affairs reinforces women's
place in the home and family life, while women's other roles in society become secondary.
Women who choose not to work also find themselves discriminated against. For example,
the Domestic Violence Act (1994) does not protect individuals who live together but are not
married according to civil or customary law, or victims of dating violence. In short, the
Domestic Violence Act criminalizes violence against women, but only if you are a married
women.

Many other laws are not satisfactory in guaranteeing protection against gender discrimination.
Women's organisations, NGOs and others have long campaigned for amendments to laws
relating to divorce, custody, maintenance, immigration, domestic violence, property, and tax
to safeguard against discrimination. To date, only the Income Tax and Distribution Acts, and
laws relating to rape have been amended.

Several of the religions practised in Malaysia, including Islam, Catholisism, Buddhism and
Hinduism, deny women access to interpreting and implementing their sacred texts. Such
patriarchal structures and practices contribute to women's lack of representation in leadership
positions. Women are also denied access to certain sacred places and rituals, for example, if
they are menstruating. Such practices encourage negative attitudes towards women, including
disrespect and inferiority to men, and demean the status of women.

Stereotyped gender roles and protectionist and patriarchal attitudes enshrined in religion and
culture permeate through society, and are reflected in the nation's schools, in places of work,
in media, government, laws and in the home.

School curricula, religious teaching material and media images continue to stereotype women
as homemakers when many women in also Malaysia work and pursue careers.
Although the number of women members of political parties is high, representation of women
in decision-making positions in the Government and other statutory bodies is poor, and falls
well short of the 30% women participation rate in Government targeted in the 1995 Global
platform for Action.

2. Women in Work
Women represent 36% of the Malaysian workforce according to official statistics. However,
half of this comprises women working as unpaid, family workers.
Although the number of economically active women has increased, the largest growth in
women's participation has been in middle- and low-level jobs, such as clerical and production
jobs. And while more women are entering professional sectors, this is largely restricted to
nursing and teaching professions.

In 1980, women accounted for only 7% of employers in the economically active population
of Malaysia. By 1990, female employers had still only reached 8.5%, with men still
comprising the vast majority in employee status. Conversely, women continue the greatly
outnumber men in unpaid work, 64% women to 35% men in 1990. Especially in the private
sectors, women continue to collect lower wages than their male colleagues. (1)
3. Women and the Law
The legal system in Malaysia is to a large extent derived from the English legal system. Civil
and criminal laws come under the Federal Government's jurisdiction. State Governments
determine, among other areas, Syariah (Islamic) Law and Native Laws that apply to
indigenous groups. For Muslims, family laws, including marriage and divorce laws, are
governed by the Syariah Courts.

Overlapping between Syariah laws and civil and criminal laws causes difficulties in the
working of the law, and in the formulation or amendments of laws. One example is the
amendment to the Guardianship Act to grant non-Muslim women equal rights to
guardianship. This right was not extended to Muslim women because Muslim women are
under the jurisdiction of Syariah Law.

The eleven year campaign for a Domestic Violence Act, which was finally implemented in
June 1996, posed similar problems in ensuring that both Muslim and non-Muslim women
would receive equal protection and rights from this law.

4. Women's Equality
Equality is enshrined in the Federal Constitution of Malaysia, All persons are equal before
the law and entitled to equal protection of the law (Article 8(1).Yet the protection against
gender discrimination guaranteed in Article 8 (1) is not upheld in Article 8 (2), Except as
expressly authorised by this Constitution, there shall be no discrimination against citizens on
the ground only of religion, race, decent or place of birth in any law relating to the
acquisition, holding or disposition of property or the establishing or carrying on of any trade,
business, profession, vocation or employment. (Article 8 (2).

The absence of State sanctioned protection against sexual discrimination in the Federal
Constitution has failed to protect against a legal system and social structures in which equality
between the sexes is apparent. Women and men are not equal before the law, nor do the sexes
have equal protection of law. Women before the law continue to encounter sexual
discrimination, in the formulation of laws, in lack of laws to protect women against
discrimination, and in the interpretation and enforcement of laws. Inequality, and a failure to
protect women against discrimination manifest itself in many detrimental ways in all spheres
of women's lives.

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