KUCHING: The Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) Women’s Wing has proposed that amendments and improvements to Article 23 of the party’s constitution be made to reflect their role.
PBB Women chief Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah said the amendment should cover the role of the women’s movement in various fields including politics, leadership, economy, education and health.
“This effort is also to bridge the large gap of equality in the domain of political dominance and opportunities for economic participation,” she said.
She explained that in in the political, economic and health domains, the statistics reported by Statistics on Women’s Empowerment in Selected Domains, Malaysia 2021, released by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) showed that there was still a gap in achievements among women compared to men in Sarawak.
“Through the report, the political domain recorded a score of 0.120 while the economic opportunity and participation recorded a score of 0.714 and the domain of health and life recorded a score of 0.947,” she said.
She said this during opening of the Youth and Women convention at the PBB 15th Triennial General Meeting (TGM) at Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) here today.
Fatimah, who is also the Minister of Women, Childhood and Community Wellbeing Development, said due to the gap, the women’s wing would like to urge the Sarawak government to take concrete steps to close the gap.
“This effort is important to ensure that women are actively involved and can contribute to the socio -economic development of the state,” she said.
Fatimah added that through the reports for the Education Achievement Sub-index, women’s achievements had preceded men’s achievements with a score of 1,059.
“For Sarawak, women’s achievements in education also recorded a higher score than men’s of 1.071, and with a score of 1.0 indicating the level of achievement of equality (opportunities and participation) between women and men.
“This good situation should be a strength that needs to be used as an asset through balancing in the chosen field of study in order to be able to increase their marketability opportunities in the job market,” she said.
Fatimah also said that one of Sarawak’s valuable resources was its women because women of this state had the ability and potential to jointly spearhead every effort to realise the aspirations of PCDS 2030 and manage the economic growth as well as address the future challenges.
“It should be realised that the quality and quantity of women’s contributions can still be improved and this situation will become a reality if the issues of inclusion, inequality and equity between genders can be addressed consciously and planned, and wisely immediately,” she added.
