A Report for and by the people

of the Asia-Pacific

Power, Voice and Rights

1. Main messages2. Where the region stands3. Three strategic areas

• Building economic power• Promoting political voice• Advancing legal rights

4. Bringing equality within reach5. Moving forward

No single measure is sufficient to capture entrenched gender

inequalities

Data are selective or absent to capture gender gaps

•Asset ownership; violence against women; how gender norms affect men; different status of men and women in households, other genders

Various gender related indices emphasize different aspects• UNDP - Gender-related Development Index (GDI), Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), Gender Inequality Index (GII)• WEF - Global Gender Gap Index (GGI)•OECD - Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) •Social Watch - Gender Equity Index (GEI)

Three strategic windows

• Economic power

• Political voice

• Legal rights

Where the region standsAsia-Pacific often ranks low on gender Indicators

Note: EAP – East Asia and the Pacific, SA – South Asia, SSA – Sub-Saharan Africa Source: World development indicators online, World Bank 2009

1.00 implies parityM=F

1.00 implies parityM=F

Asia exhibits some extreme forms of gender based discrimination…

girls may not be even born.

Asia as a whole has the worst performance in the world in male-female sex ratio at birth. And the divide is increasing over time.

Source: World population prospects, the 2008 revision

More baby boys than baby

girls compared

to the world

average

More baby boys than baby

girls compared

to the world

average

In 2007, the estimated number of females who were “missing” – who died as a result of health and nutrition neglect, or were never born in the first place – was close to 100 million in just seven Asian countries.

Women’s inheritance, safety and voice are not guaranteed

• UNEQUAL INHERITANCE: More than 1/2 the countries in South and West Asia favour men in land inheritance laws, compared to 1/3 in East Asia. In the Pacific, the rates are even higher with customary laws on inheritance that discriminate against women

• PERVASIVE GENDER BASED VIOLENCE: More than one-tenth of women in Asia-Pacific report assaults by their male partners; yet more than 60 per cent of the countries in the Pacific and nearly half in South Asia have no laws on domestic violence

• RESTRICTED POLITICAL VOICE: The region has the second-lowest per cent of women parliamentarians in the world; the Pacific has 4 of the 6 countries in the world with no women parliamentarians. Only about 1/3 of Asia-Pacific countries have a gender quota system in place for political participation

• EAST ASIA IS AHEAD IN LFPR*: About 67% of

women from EA &P participate in the labour force, above the global average of 53%; but South Asian women are far behind, at only 36%

• BUT UNEMPLOYMENT GAPS WORSE THAN GLOBAL AVERAGE: In most of the region, M-F gap in unemployment is twice the global average. A majority of women in the region – up to 85% in South Asia – are in “vulnerable” employment, such as self-employment, or the informal economy; far above the global average of 53%

*LFPR: Labour force participation rate

Women are disadvantaged in paid

work

Per cent of Farmland Owned by WomenRegional Comparisons

Source: FAO agricultural census 1989 to 1999

Women Earn Less than Men

Ratio of Female-to-Male Estimated Earned Income in Asia-Pacific, 2007, US $ PPP

Source: Based on UNDP Human Development Report 2009

Economic power: key challengesAssets, earnings: Asia-Pacific is growing but nowhere are women in advantage

Hardly Any Women Farm Owners in Asia-Pacific

Political voice: key challengesAsia-Pacific is second from the bottom; only Arab states are lower

Source: As of 30 June 2009, IPU

Legal rights: key challenges

• The regions history has led to legal systems rooted in a web of contradictory influences

• Laws meant to ensure justice fail to treat women and men fairly – Absent, unequal,

contradictory– Only technically equal (non-

discriminatory)• Even equitable laws do not

always translate into equality in practice

• Unequal access is still linked to gender

Economic power: recognize barriers

With women as full economic agents, economies and individuals should fulfill their potential

• Neglect of health and nutrition, often over the life-cycle

• Lack of access and stereotypes in education curtail potential

• Access to assets mediated through males and compromised due to marital status

• The burden of unpaid care work affects opportunities for paid work

• Informal employment is often the only option, and on poorer terms

• Unsafe mobility limit market opportunities

Bringing equality within reach: boost economic control

• Ensure equal rights to property and earnings through laws, policies and political backing

• Reform labour markets:• Reduce wage gaps• Improve work conditions; contractual status• Address unpaid care work, practical needs; don’t

treat them as ‘burdens’• Strengthen investments in female education and

health; target the poor• Ensure safe mobility within and across borders• Assess change

Barriers to political voice

Political decision making touches all areas of people’s lives. Access to the political arena is essential to articulate and shape solutions

• Lack of access to campaign financing

• Political parties: men set the political terms

• Attitudes limit female participation and mobility

• Budgets treated as economic rather than political process

Bringing equality within reach: harness democratic dividends

• Governments and political parties should boost the number and quality of female representation to deepen democracy

• Build capacity, nurture interest, facilitate mentoring both inside and outside the formal political system

• Bring gender-friendly budgets on political agendas to transform mainstream fiscal spaces

• Seek out women’s voices in crises and after to ensure women are at all decision levels

• Assess change

Legal rights: confront barriers

Legal equality opens doors to transformation in other spheres

•Women experience laws differently from men. Laws are the backbone for guarantees of rights and the regulation of people’s quality of life, security, freedoms

•The complex web of laws, simple and mechanical descriptions of “non-discrimination”

•Laws—de jure or de facto, written or unwritten, by act or omission, or by interpretation—affect men and women in harnessing their full potential

Bringing equality within reach: enforcing rights; correcting wrongs

FIX LAWS; IMPROVE ACCESS• Support legal reform and synchronize contradictory legal

webs for real justice– Go beyond simple mechanical ‘non-discrimination’ of

treating likes alike

• Improve access to justice– Orient the police, judiciary and increase female shares– Identify religious and traditional leaders, CSOs as

champions of gender justice– Assess and track change

• Use international norms as useful benchmarks for gender equality

• Support judicial activism for positive change

Thank you for listening

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