The continued lack of childcare facilities in the workplace has been blamed for Malaysia's failure to attain gender equality.

DAP Wanita national secretary Teresa Kok, who is Seputeh MP, said the long-overdue national childcare services plan would help boost female participation in the labour force.

"One of the reasons for the lacklustre performance is the lack of childcare facilities and other supporting mechanisms for working women," she said in a message on International Women's Day today.

Noting the meagre allocation of RM1.9 million for 10 childcare centres in August 2005, she said this was "grossly insufficient".

"A national plan will facilitate more women to get into the workforce and ensure that they have an independent source of income."

Reiterating the party's stand on the issue, Kok said increasing women's presence in the labour market was one of the proposals outlined in the 6th Malaysia Plan (1991-1995).

"Malaysia's female participation in the workforce has been hovering around 45 percent over the past two decades. In 1985, it was 44.3 percent, up a shade higher at 46 percent in 2005.

"This is much lower than most industrial countries such as Singapore (56 percent), South Korea (51 percent) and United States (57 percent)."

Kok said the lack of concerns for childcare has a consequence on income distribution and has tripled the number of domestic helpers in recent years.

Citing a National Economic Action Council finding, she said only two-income families with a combined income of RM5,000 per month could afford maids.

"Women who cannot afford a maid in their family have no choice, as in most cases, but to stay at home."

Agents of change

Parti Keadilan Rakyat president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, in her message, called for more women to join the reform movement.

She said that, despite technological and economic advancements, women still lag in political representation and are often victims of violence with scarce access to protection.

Citing the recent hike in fuel prices, the Permatang Pauh MP said women now face heavier burdens in contributing to household demands.

"Yet women continue to be discriminated against in economic and business opportunities," she said, noting the low presence of women as elected representatives at the state and parliamentary levels.

"Malaysian women are not only agents of change and reform but leaders whom we sorely need to make a real difference in the world in which we live."

Justice and human rights would be empty slogans if women's rights and needs are not at the fore of reform, she added.

Sisters In Islam (SIS), in a statement, hoped that the review of recent discriminatory amendments in the Islamic Family Law will "save the day for women and for Malaysia's reputation as a progressive and model Muslim country".

"We are very concerned that while civil laws are being amended to grant women of other faiths equal rights to men, Muslim laws are being amended to perpetuate and deepen inequalities between Muslim women and men.

"The problem is not with the religion but with patriarchal men who interpret Islam to perpetuate their privileged status in life and resist change that is palpitating around them."

SIS said that Malaysia will be the first to report the regression in the legal standing pertaining to the protection of women's rights and discrimination against women.

"It would be a shame when Malaysia reports to the CEDAW (Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women) committee in New York in May that it is the first state party to file such a report since the convention was enforced in 1981.

"All countries either report stagnation or progress."

Referring to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's speech in January, SIS said he had acknowledged that the solutions to problems faced by contemporary Muslim societies today, particularly women, were not limited to the syariah laws.