Women Empowerment: ASEAN Case Studies

Madeline Berma (Assoc.Prof.Dr)Tun Fatimah Hashim Women’s Leadership Centre

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

Presentation

• Introduction

• Women’s Empowerment

• ASEAN women making a difference

– Facilitating Factors

– Constraining Factors

Introduction

• Education

• Work

• Research

• Community

Introduction

Women’s Empowerment

• According to the UN definition, women’s empowerment has five components:

• Women's sense of self-worth;

• Right to have and to determine choices;

• Right to have access to opportunities and resources;

• Right to have the power to control their own lives, both within and outside the home;

• Ability to influence the direction of social change to create more social and economic order, nationally and internationally.

Nutrition

Maternalmortality

Infantmortality

Malaria andother diseases

Income growth

UniversalPrimary

education

Gender equality/women’s

empowerment

…an opportunity, and an essential condition for achieving the Millennium Development Goals

Reducing inequalities - Empowering

women...

ASEAN Women making a difference…

Women Making a Difference…case studies

• Sreyneath Poole – Blogging and Empowering Cambodian Women

• Rasammah Bhupalan – Malaysian Women in politics

• Yayasan Pendamping Wanita Usaha Kecil – Strengthening Indonesian women in small business

Facilitating Factors For Women Empowerment

• Existence of women's organizations

• Cultural context

• Women working with men

• Availability of support systems

• Using existing structures

• Women leadership

• Networking

• Favourable media coverage

• Favourable policy climate.

Constraining Factors For Women Empowerment

• Heavy work load of women.

• Isolation of women from each other.

• Illiteracy.

• Traditional views limit participation.

• No funds.

• Disagreements/conflicts among women's groups.

• Negative and sensational coverage of media

Thank You Very Much

Madeline Berma (Dr.)Tun Fatimah Hashim Women’s Leadership CentreUniversiti Kebangsaan Malaysia43600, Bangi, MalaysiaEmail: mac@ukm.edu.myMadeline.berma@gmail.com