Resident Coordinator's speech: Malaysia Women and Girls Forum 2022

Yang Berhormat Dato' Sri Nancy Shukri – Minister of Women, Family and Community Development

Dr. Asa Torkelsson, UNFPA Representative for Malaysia and Country Director for Thailand

Your Excellencies, Distinguished Guests,

Ladies & Gentlemen, 

Good morning.

It is a privilege to be with you today and on behalf of the United Nations in Malaysia, I welcome you to this 3rd edition of the Malaysia Women & Girls Forum: Expanding Women’s Rights Through Economic Equity. We are especially honored that Dato' Sri Nancy Shukri, Minister of Women, Family and Community Development was able to join us today.

I congratulate my colleagues at UNFPA Malaysia, the Gender Results Group and their partners for this unique platform for dialogue, advocacy, and solutions, and for bringing together a stellar lineup of speakers, panelists and an audience full of energy and great ideas, committed to the cause of advancing and empowering women and girls in Malaysia. 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The past three years have brought a series of mutually reinforcing crises. In addition to a devastating pandemic, the world has to withstand a perfect storm fueled by war, food and energy shortages, cost-of-living crises and increasingly severe impacts of climate change. 

Recovery from these multiple traumas calls for urgency, ambition and scale.  Ensuring that no one is left behind and delivering sustainable development for everyone everywhere must be our priority, and women and girls must be high up on the list. 

There is no doubt that women and girls are among those that have suffer first and the most.

I drafted this sentence and stopped to ask why?  Why should women and girls systematically be among those that are hit the hardest?

Despite decades-long efforts to empower half of humanity, we are not there yet.   On a daily basis, and more so in times of crisis, any crisis, we worry first about girls dropping out of schools, about child marriage, about various forms of violence against women and girls, about lost livelihoods or limited access to sexual and reproductive health.

But in a country like Malaysia, with such promising economic prospects and well-educated female human capital, we should not worry.  And yet we do, and numbers and trends do tell us that we should still be concerned because barriers to women’s effective participation and empowerment stand stubbornly still.

Ladies and gentlemen,

This year’s forum is about economic equity, a true enabler of empowerment and prosperity. 

Economic inequities contribute to further digging the inequality gap. Economic under-representation creates a vicious cycle of vulnerability, perpetuated by social stigmas, poverty, unequal access to healthcare, to justice and weak political representation and participation. 

Malaysia’s female labour force participation rate stood at 55.6 per cent as of July 2022.   Meanwhile, male labour force participation was at a much healthier 82.5 per cent.

In July also, the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index – which assesses countries on how well they distribute resources and opportunities among their male and female populations – ranked Malaysia 103rd out of 146 countries.  Only two ASEAN member States ranked below Malaysia.

These startling facts trigger the same question. Why? Why Malaysia?

With some of the highest rates of female enrolment in primary, secondary and tertiary education globally, Malaysia has the means to perform better, by deconstructing legislative and social obstacles that women and girls have to face every day, and which suffocate their potential for economic progress.

Addressing economic inequities goes beyond labour market policies that promote women’s participation.  It starts at the structural level, by addressing a myriad of interlocked issues, ranging from legal protection to unpaid care-work, to GBV, to access to finance, to social protection, to Sexual and Reproductive Health, to harmful practices.

So every move to address one of these challenges is a move towards economic equity.

Ladies and gentlemen,

There are many reasons to be optimistic in Malaysia. Several recently promulgated laws, such as the Anti-Sexual Harassment and Anti-Stalking Bills, the Housewives Social Security Act as well as amendments to the Employment Act, all contribute to protecting women’s fundamental rights and advancing the equality agenda.

The new unity government is a historic opportunity for Malaysia to chart a pathway that matches its capabilities and enables it to devise effective strategies and solutions in line with the SDGs and international conventions.  Women must have an undisputed centre-stage position, both as a targets and contributors.

It is estimated that investing in removing barriers obstructing women’s economic participation would result in an additional 5 million contributors to the local economy. This income alone, as outlined by the 2019 World Bank report ‘Breaking Barriers’, could be as much as RM10,000 per capita – elevating Malaysia to a high-income nation.

Such a transformational approach is both necessary and possible. Malaysia can be bolder and has the means to get women and girls out of the vulnerability trap.

The United Nations Country Team stands by the Government, civil society, the private sector and all engaged stakeholders as the country builds and strengthens the foundations of a prosperous future which equally benefits men and women, girls and boys.

Maintaining this Forum as an annual meeting point of key players is one among many initiatives to ensure that these strong voices, success stories and accumulation of recommendations across the themes can inspire policies, decisions and action.

I congratulate UNFPA for another successful in-person edition of the Malaysia Women and Girls Forum and wish you fruitful discussions

Thank you for your attention.