Govt urged to include women voices in National Recovery Council

 

Women's voices and the gender perspective must be included in the Covid-19 recovery plan, as they can provide more than half of the solutions to problems that have stemmed from the pandemic, the National Recovery Summit was told today.

National Council of Women Organisations (NCWO) president Sharifah Hapsah Syed Hasan Shahabudin (above) said women have been worst impacted by the pandemic, particularly those working with dependant wages in informal sectors.

“We would like to see the voice of women represented in the national task force, and at all levels of the recovery plans.

“The progress made towards gender equality has been eroded and at least a decade of setbacks (due to the pandemic).

“The cycle of inequality has to be broken by representation and participation,” she added.

Hapsah stressed that gender perspective must be brought into decision making, as such an inclusive measure would solve a lot of problems faced by women.

“If the gender perspective is injected in the plan, more than half of the solutions can already be achieved,” she said.

She gave the example of vaccination, in which she explained how women play an important role in driving the rise in the vaccination rate.

“If you get women on board, you’ll get the whole family, and you’ll get the whole community,” Hapsah added.

She also highlighted the psycho-social impact of the pandemic, citing the news of nurses, who are predominantly women, facing burnt-out and anxiety issues at the workplace.

“One of our organisations is the Malaysian Nurses Association. The first news we got from them was about how the burnt-out syndrome is occurring among frontliners.

“There should be a very important standard operating procedure (SOP) for the Health Ministry to address the issue of counselling for frontliners,” she said.

Petaling Jaya MP Maria Chin Abdullah struck a similar tone with Hapsah on the issue of working women.

“If we want the economic growth to succeed we have to resolve the inequalities faced by women, who want to also return back to the workforce,” she told the summit.

She said the workplace that women return to must be safe and fair, while also ensuring decent working conditions.

Petaling Jaya MP Maria Chin Abdullah

Maria cited the issue of childcare, which she said is one of the most important matters at hand.

“Be it community-based or work-based, these (childcare facilities) have to be set up for women so that they can easily ease back into employment,” she said.

Both Hapsah and Maria appeared as panellists at the National Recovery Summit co-organised by the National Recovery Council (NRC), the Economic Club of Kuala Lumpur and think-tank KSI Strategic Institute for Asia Pacific.

Former premier Muhyiddin Yassin as newly appointed chairperson of the NRC delivered the closing address, while Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz earlier presented a keynote speech.

The one-day virtual event attracted over 300 participants and presented 22 speakers on topics related to the ongoing national recovery plan.  - Mkini