Press Statements

Expedite Amendments Of Employment Act To Protect Women

MACSA repeats its past demands for the Government to materialize its pledge for greater protection towards the employees in private sectors. It is pertinent now more than ever considering the acknowledgement by the Ministry of Human Resource that there is a huge gap within our laws, which has failed to provide the necessary protection for pregnant women seeking employment. Amend the Employment Act 1955 The promise for a comprehensive amendment to our Employment Act 1955 [Act 265] must be honored and addressed by the Government to ensure that women are neither discriminated by reason of their marital status nor for their religious belief nor for their ethnicities. The Malaysian Government has taken a bold move in declaring its commitment for inclusivity but this means nothing if women

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Press Statements

The Incoming 3rd Cycle of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) for Malaysia at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva

In two weeks time, on the 8th of November 2018, an important proceeding will be taking place at the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council, in Geneva. Malaysia’s human rights practices will be scrutinised in a mechanism known as the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). A multitude of recommendations are expected to be made by the UN member countries across the world, from the call for Malaysia to ratify various international human rights treaties to basic issues such as freedom of speech and religion, the rights of stateless persons and refugees, equality between the sexes, inter-ethnic harmony, and many more. MACSA, or in full the Malaysian Alliance of Civil Society Organisations in the UPR Process, will be sending a delegation of eight human rights defenders consisting of academics, ...

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Press Statements

WAO is Missing the Points on Modest Clothing

We would like to refer to a letter to the Star dated August 8, 2018 from the Women’s Aid Organization (WAO) headlined “More to focus on than policing women’s clothing”. The WAO seems to miss some rather important points. Firstly, study by the Women's Alliance For Family Institution and Quality Education (WAFIQ) in collaboration with Centre for Human Rights Research & Advocacy (CENTHRA) and Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM) has shown that as many as 5.7% female Muslim respondents reported that they're not allowed to wear hijab, and out of this, 60.9% is from the private sector. There is a substantial number of women in the workforce in Malaysia who are very distressed that they are not able to choose what they want to wear which happens to be Shariah-compliant clothing. They

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Press Statements

Menangani Masalah Diskriminasi Agama dan Gangguan Seksual di Kalangan Wanita di Tempat Kerja

TERJEMAHAN Penglibatan wanita dalam sektor pekerjaan negara telah meningkat dari 5.72 juta dalam suku kedua tahun 2017 kepada 5.76 juta dalam suku ketiga tahun yang sama, seperti yang dinyatakan oleh Ketua Perangkawan, Jabatan Perangkaan Malaysia, Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin. Kadar penyertaan wanita dalam tenaga kerja di Malaysia adalah 54.3% pada tahun sebelumnya. Trend terkini menunjukkan kadar ini akan semakin meningkat dari tahun ke tahun. Peningkatan penglibatan wanita di sektor pekerjaan ini memerlukan perhatian yang serius dari pimpinan dan pembuat dasar, terutama sejak akhir-akhir ini dimana terdapat aduan tentang amalan diskriminasi dan gangguan seksual terhadap wanita di tempat kerja. Pertubuhan Ikatan Wanita Antarabangsa bagi Institusi Keluarga dan Pendidikan Berkua

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Press Statements

Addressing Religious Discrimination And Sexual Harassments Against Working Women

Women’s participation in the national workforce has increased from 5.72 million in the second quarter of 2017 to 5.76 million in the third quarter in the same year according to Chief Statistician of the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM), Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Uzir Mahidin. The female labour force participation rate for Malaysia was 54.3% the year before. Current trends indicate that the participation of women in the national workforce are set to rise even further. The rising number of women in Malaysian workforce requires considerable attention from management and policymakers, especially of late when there have been reports on discriminatory practices as well as sexual harassment occurring at the workplace. The International Women's Alliance for Family Institution and Quality Ed...

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Press Statements

Equitable Rights and Re-Examining the Concept of Gender

2018 is the year to empower women. Yet there is still much work to be done. The legal frameworks and policies – pertaining to marriage and family, are still perceived as unsatisfactory in protecting the rights of Malaysian women. Although undeniably, our legislative bodies have made some improvements, however many have criticized these changes as either superficial or, at the very least, insufficient. Issues such as discrimination and violence against women, sexual harassment, job dissatisfaction, income disparity, inadequate women representatives in policy-making bodies or in boards of directorship continue to be familiar conundrums that plague our society. To address these issues, our society must be prepared to adopt tools that would provide valuable insights in eliminating inequi...

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Press Statements

Focusing on pressing and urgent women’s issues

On February 19, Malaysia’s progress in women’s rights was reviewed at the 69th session of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). This is the second time Malaysia has been reviewed after it acceded to CEDAW in 1995. The review process is undoubtedly one of the best platforms to raise awareness of issues concerning the rights of women in Malaysia. The Malaysian Alliance of Civil Society Organisations in the UPR Process (MACSA) welcomes the government’s commitment in combating discrimination against women including the government’s assurance to enact Gender Equality Act, as well as its commitment in upholding and implementing a legal framework and policies pertaining to marriage and family on the basis of equality between m...

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Press Statements

Absurdities of spectrum-gender LGBT arguments

With the Regressive Left’s new dogmas on gender, we now see the actualisation of the Orwellian premonition of a world, in which we are required to accept that 2+2=5. And, just as it would be the case if fundamental arithmetic were discarded, the same is true if we dismiss basic biology. The current perfidious trend that forces us to accept that “both sex and gender identity is a spectrum, consisting of many identities that are not limited to male, female, women and men,” can only inevitably result in absurd confusion and chaos. The statement quoted above comes from a coalition of NGOs in Malaysia objecting to the purported government’s intention to perform a “gender test” on a prominent social-media celebrity, whose gender has been called into question by the public at large. They ma...

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Press Statements

The Regressive Left: Human Rights Extortionists

Defining Liberal Fascists Let’s be clear. Being Leftist does not inoculate you from behaving like a Fascist; just as authoritarianism is not the exclusive vice of the Right Wing. The Nazis, after all, were Socialist and lest we forget, Joseph “Dictator” Stalin and Chairman Mao Zedong were Communists, while Francisco “Fascist” Franco in Spain was, in fact, a Left Wing Socialist. The most archetypal examples of Totalitarianism in the 20th Century were incarnated by Left Wing ideologues and simply, using Liberal jargon with the aim to appeal to compassion and tolerance in order for you to advance a deeply authoritarian agenda does not make that agenda less offensive. What makes a movement Fascist is the degree, to which it does not accept dissent, its refusal to tolerate other opinio

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Press Statements

Pindaan Anti-Diskriminasi Dalam Akta Kerja 1955 Suatu Usaha Baik

Gabungan Pertubuhan-Pertubuhan Masyarakat Sivil Malaysia bagi Proses Semakan Berkala Sejagat (MACSA) mengalu-alukan dan menyokong kenyataan oleh Kementerian Sumber Manusia bertarikh 13 Januari 2018, bahawa Akta Kerja 1955 akan dipinda bagi menangani diskriminasi di tempat kerja. Hal ini berikutan isu larangan pemakaian tudung yang dikenakan terhadap sesetengah pekerja Muslimah, khususnya oleh majikan di sektor perhotelan di negara ini. Sejak perkara ini mendapat perhatian umum, Perikatan Wanita Antarabangsa Institusi Keluarga dan Pendidikan Berkualiti (WAFIQ), sebagai salah satu pertubuhan dalam gabungan MACSA, telah mengatur pertemuan dengan beberapa orang pekerja hotel yang terlibat dengan larangan ini, bagi mendapatkan gambaran menyeluruh mengenai krisis penafian hak beragama terhada...

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