RESOLUTION OF THE 4th EAST ASIAN WOMEN'S FORUM

7 September, 2000
Taipei, Taiwan

The 4th East Asian Women's Forum took place in Taipei, Taiwan, on 4-7 September, 2000 with more than 370 delegates of women's non-governmental organizations representing Hong Kong, Japan, Mongolia, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan and Tibet.

Participants heard reports from all seven countries and regions on nine topics regarding the developments in the situation of women over the past two years. Intensive and focused exchange of views followed in each workshop.

At the conclusion of the event, participants made the following resolutions:

• While we acknowledge that globalization has given some women wider opportunities, we are fully aware of its negative impacts: the lowering of labor standards, the enforcement of a ‘race to the bottom’ and the feminization of poverty. We need to consider the situation of rural women, differently abled women, and women with non-paid jobs. Women should use the convenience of wider space and the opportunities provided by information communication technology (ICT) to strengthen women's movements.

• We are concerned about the inadequate representation of women at all levels of decision making in both public and private sectors. There is a need for a critical mass of women to make the political process more accountable and transparent.

• We are concerned about internet child pornography and child prostitution. We suggest that the human rights of sex workers should be protected and that the sex industry should be discouraged. Further discussion is needed on this subject. We also express our sincere concern about the situations of women in Tibet, under military occupation, and situation of women migrant workers.

• Domestic violence is no longer a private matter, but a community and social concern. Legislation is very important to prevent all kinds of violence against women. In the process of legislation, we should facilitate the participation of survivors and get them seriously involved.

• Systematic gender/sex education should be started at an early stage of childhood and included in all areas and levels of education. There is an urgent need to train teachers, parents and community leaders to be gender sensitive.

• We are aware of the fact that reproductive technologies have sometimes brought women increased opportunities, but we are concerned about the mental and physical impacts on women’s health. Such technologies should not be used as a tool to perpetuate the role of women as merely serving the patriarchal system. AIDS/HIV is a serious and growing problem in Asia; in particular the age of infection age is falling. Therefore, we urgently call for educating young people about HIV/STD. Assertiveness training is necessary for women to deal with sexual partners and to have reproductive autonomy. We are aware of the negative impact of the male-centered, male-biased medical professional practice on women’s health.

• Women should make works, films, videos, publications and comic books, etc. from female autonomous perspectives. Indigenous cultural heritages should be protected and preserved.

• The impact of radioactive contamination is beyond generations and national boundaries, bringing eternal suffering and damage on all living creatures and the environment. We encourage green consumerism to protect the ecosystem. Women should have access to the latest information and debate on the safety and the environmental impact of genetically engineered products.

The youth forum should continue to be a part of the EAWF. In particular, we encourage more discussion of sexuality as a major concern of the youth forum. We will form a preparatory committee for the next youth forum, and a contact person will be selected from each country/region.

Finally, the EAWF participants decided that the 5th East Asian Women Forum will be held in Hong Kong in the year 2003. We hope that our sisters from China, North Korea and Macao will be able to participate in our next forum.
 

• To develop an official website of the EAWF and provide related training to local trainers.
• To establish an EAW Cyber Forum on several specific issues which were raised in this forum, such as unpaid work.
• To encourage the exchange of artworks and contacts among women artists from different countries and regions.
• To urge all our governments to adopt the legislation of preventing violence against women, and to closely monitor the legislative process and implementation.
• To encourage members to participate in the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery which will be held in December 2000 in Tokyo, Japan.
• To urge our respective governments and related international agencies to conduct research on the situation of workers in the sex industry and make public the problem and difficulties faced by such workers, as well as the impact on the family and society caused by the sex industry.
• To encourage young people to continue to participating actively to the forum.
• To urge our governments to regulate the labeling of genetically-engineered products, so that consumers can exercise their right to choose whether or not to use them.

Women's Commission
In the eve of the UN Beijing +5 conference, Mrs. Anson Chan, Chief Secretary for Administration of Hong Kong SAR, suddenly announced that the Government would set up a Women's Commission (Commission), 4 years after the extension of the CEDAW to Hong Kong.

The Commission will have executive support from the Health & Welfare Bureau, which women NGOs criticised to be at too low level and indicated that the Government's vision of women's issues still confine to 'health and welfare' issues.

According to the Government, the Commission will:
1. Advise the Government on women's policies,
2. Review services to women,
3. Initiate surveys and research studies on women,
4. Promote and improve co-operation and co-ordination of various department services to women.

The Government claimed that the structure and work of the Commission is still open to suggestions but the government only held one consultation with women organisations, 2 months after the announcement was made.  Women organisations believe the Government's act is merely to save embarrassment from the international communities and not genuine effort to advance women's rights.

Economy and Employment
Female unemployment rate jumped from 1.9% (23,900) in 1997 to 3.7% (48,000) in 1998 of the female working population.  We believe the real figure would be much higher since government statistic does not account for those women who are forced to stay at home because of lack of work.  Government statistic also shows that there is still a big gap between women and men's income: women constitute 72.7% (67,000) of those in the income level of less than USD 385 per month and men constitute 72.1% (225,000) of the income level of more than USD 3850 per month.

Stereotype in employment is still a serious problem faced by women, men constitute 79.5% (199,000) of those employed in managerial and administrative positions while women constitute only 20.4% (51,000) of the same occupation category.  The figure is reverse in the low skilled occupation category.

The Government claims that Hong Kong is a very prosperous region and we are recovering from the economic depression.  However, in the past 10 years, the population of working poor has increased by 67.4% (from 210,000 to 360,000). Income of the top 20% families constitutes 50% of Hong Kong's total income whereas the bottom 20% families constitutes only 4.3% of Hong Kong's total income.

Hong Kong women's employment condition has been adversely affected by two factors: (1) casualization, where more and more women are being employed in part-time, temporary, or contract work, falling outside the protection of labour laws; (2) extending full-timers' working hours and suppressing wages. Many women are subjected to unfair discrimination based on age and pregnancy.

The privatization of public services is an important attribute to the casualization of women's employment.  Government departments sub-contract their services to the lowest bidders without proper monitoring on the employment situation of their workers.  For example, cleaners in public housing estates: 90% of these cleaners are women living in the same housing estates who cannot afford other employment due to heavy family responsibilities. As a result of the many layers of sub-contracting, the average monthly wage of these cleaners is just USD 465. In the last two years, there is an increase of immigrant women employed in sub-contracted cleaning work subjecting to more exploitation because of their vulnerable situation as a immigrant.

Cuts in Wages and Social Security
At the midst of the economic crisis, the SAR Government did nothing to help the poorest of the communities, but instead promote wage and social security cuts.

Among the first to suffer were the foreign domestic workers who have their salaries (USD490), cut by 5%. At the same time, government officials initiated negative propaganda campaign against those who have to depend on the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance Scheme (CSSA), claiming them to be lazy bones, even cheaters. The real cut of the CSSA then followed. The cuts largely affected single parent, mainly mothers, who are forced to live on welfare because they have young children and they are not receiving maintenance from their ex-husbands.

The social security cut hit hard on families of 3 or more because the Government claimed that as the number family member increases, expenditure can be shared. Special allowance such as subsidies for glasses, removal expenses and dental expenses were cut, all of which are important for women fleeing violence and mothers raising children alone.

A lot of single parents already complained of discrimination by private landlords who holds the view that children from single parent families are trouble makers. With the non-existence of public housing assistance and high private rent, the standard of living for single parents and their children has deteriorated.

Maintenance Collection Agency
In 1997, Hong Kong's Legislative Council approved the proposal to set up a maintenance  collection agency but up till now, the Government still refused to act on the proposal.  Instead, the Government introduced the "Attachment of Income Order Rules" which allows the court to make order for maintenance to be deducted from the ex-husband's income.  This offer little help to women whose ex-husband is self-employed or employed in casual labour. This rule was tested for one year with only 2 women benefited from it.

Discrimination base on Pregnancy
Apart from reducing the basic salaries of the foreign domestic workers (FDWs), the Labour Department made another racist proposal to reduce labour protection for FDWs. It proposed to abolish employer's legal obligation to pregnant FDWs, i.e., the two parties can negotiate to terminate the contract if the FDWs is pregnant. Fortunately fierce opposition from FDWs, women and labour NGOs defeated the proposal.

Despite protections from the Labour Ordinance and the Sex Discrimination Ordinance, discrimination based on pregnancy is still on the increase in the past two years. The present maternity law is inadequate in offering protection to pregnant workers.  Many employers give unjust pressure and work load to pregnant workers to force them to resign.  Levels of maternity pay is also inadequate: employees on a continuous contract who have been employed for more than 40 weeks are only entitled to 10 weeks of paid maternity leave, with maternity pay of 4/5 of normal wage.

Discrimination Against Newly Arrived Women
Everyday, 150 new arrivals from Mainland China come into Hong Kong for family reunion. Half of new arrivals are women (190,000), and among those who are aged over 15, 46% are housewives. They lack knowledge about Hong Kong society and supporting network. According to surveys done by NGOs, 80% of new migrant women claimed that they have difficulties in finding job, and they are, very often, being exploited with very low wages, long working hours, heavy workload and little labour protection. One even reported dying from overworking. Women shelters also notice an increase of newly arrived women suffering from domestic violence due to imbalance power relationship with their husbands. Resources had been largely devoted to family and children, and women's needs as an individual had been ignored.

Sex Workers
Being a sex worker in Hong Kong per se is not illegal, but the ordinance known as "Soliciting for Immoral Purposes" is often used unfairly to arrest sex workers. The interpretation of this ordinance is that if a policeman suspect that you use words, expressions, gesture or seem to have intentions in soliciting for the purpose of sexual exchange, they can arrest you at the spot. Very often, policemen would act as undercover agent and pretend to be clients.  They would even initiate a conversation and arrest the sex workers when they answer.  This law is mainly targeted towards female sex workers. Even though the customers are more likely to violate the law, the police usually prefer to use them as witness against the sex workers.

The law "Living on earnings of prostitution of others" goes as far as charging the family members (parents, children, etc) and turning them to criminals.  Taking care of the elders and young originally is a logical deed approved by our society.  However, sex workers and their family members are deprived of such rights.  This ordinance also further damages sex workers' family members' emotional well being.

In carrying out their duties, police harass sex worker on a daily basis.  Even when they are working legally in their own flat, the police have rights to disturb sex workers, using different charges to arrest and threaten them. This is indirectly forcing many sex workers who work in a more protected environment to work on the streets, a much more vulnerable situation, and thus more likely to violate the ordinance: "Soliciting for Immoral purposes".

There are virtually no services for sex workers. Sex workers face abuses everyday, but police does not think that sex workers can be raped and sexually abused. If they are hurt in the course of their work, the public would think that they deserve such treatments.

Home Makers
Women's contribution to society as unpaid home makers has never been accounted for in any statistic in Hong Kong.  This is reflected in the new retirement scheme, the MPF (Mandatory Provident Fund), starting operation in December 2000. The scheme is income related that requires contribution to be made by both employers and employees when the employee's monthly income is higher than $4,000.  The scheme has been heavily criticised by NGOs, in particular, women NGOs, because it only benefit bankers and insurance companies.  It provides no retirement protection to home makers and little protection to workers on a low wage.  According to year 2000 statistic, there are 790,000 women who participate in low wage and unstable work, and unpaid home work, they will have no retirement protection.

Violence Against Women
Prior to June 2000, the law requires judges to give warning to the jury or themselves on non-corroborated sexual offence cases.  The system still holds an ancient believe that women cannot be trusted as witnesses on sexual offences, they would have emotional reaction after sexual activity.  Therefore, even if the requirement for mandatory corroborated evidence was abolished, there was still a legal requirement for judges to give warnings.  The failure to provide one, very often, became argument of successful appeals for sex offenders.

In 1999, the Government proposed to abolish the warning requirement, this was met with fierce opposition from the Bar Council, legal professions and many legislators.  With equally fierce lobbying from women NGOs, the bill was finally passed in June 2000.

Hong Kong's rape law is out of date with its protection, for example, the definition of rape needs to be review; what is meant by illegal sexual intercourse, as specified in the law, also needs to be clarify and the clause on 'delay' also needs to be abolished.

Hong Kong has a high rape crime rate, but there are no services specifically targeted at the victims.  Victims who are brave enough to come forward has to repeat their stories to different authorities, such as medical professionals, social workers, counselors and the police. Women NGOs, the Equal Opportunity Commission and professionals worked together to lobby the Government to set up a rape crisis centre to offer one-stop service to rape victims.

The need to review legislation and set up services for rape victim requires co-ordinated efforts from various government departments and NGOs input.  The Government agreed to set up a Working Group on Sexual Violence Against Women.  However, women NGOs treat this with caution because so far there is no transparency in the set up of the Working Group and the experience with the Working Group on Battered Spouse has not been positive.

The Working Group on Battered Spouse was set up to co-ordinate various services available to battered women. It has been, however, criticised to be passive and conservative, and  worked along government guidelines instead of improving services to battered spouses. The Government has established a one-stop service for battered spouses under the Children Protection Unit in April, 2000, but the service was without consultation and publicity. Women even complained that when they called the unit for services, they were told to call community centres instead.

In Hong Kong, frontline social workers who are assisting these women have a lot of power in recommending them for public assistance. Often, social workers set barriers rather than provide assistance, they are rigid and unsympathetic.  Battered women with children and badly in need of rehousing can, in theory, applied for Conditional Tenancy housing under the Compassionate Rehousing policy.  However, women complained that social workers either said there was no such scheme, or said unless they were getting cancer or some serious illnesses, or else there was no way they could be rehoused under the scheme.

Media
The mass media has been constructing social opinion everyday, and creating a mono, masculine, heterosexist culture. In order to attract readership, the media always report news involving female victim in an entertaining and sensational way.

In response to the above, organisations claimed to have high moral standard invited the government to interfere and to have more control on the media.  The hidden ideology behind these organisations is conservatism and the believe that women should behave in a proper manner, that is wear more clothes and no outside marriage sexual activities and no 'unnatural sexual behavior.'  Earlier, the Government initiated a consultation paper on the Review of the Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance has just finished.  Women NGOs and homosexual groups fear that the Government is using protection for young people as a front to justify its action to further restrict open discussions and attitude on sex and sexual autonomy.  This could greatly damage the freedom of speech in Hong Kong and rights of minority groups.

The Government operate on a double standard when it comes to censorship.  One incident can illustrate this well.  A poster of a Canadian film: Better than Chocolate, a film mainly about women in love and anti-prohibition, was banned, said officials, for obscenity, but similar if not worse heterosexist poster that degrade women was left untouched because it is not categorised as an adult film.

Political Participation
In the 2000 Legislation Council election, 19.3% of the Geographical Constituency (direct election section) candidates are women, compared to 19% in 1998. But even in 1998, men elected rate were 4 times that of women. Even when women are elected, they do not necessary have women's perspective although they would use gender mainstreaming and advancement of women as a slogan.  We certainly did not see many efforts being made by ex-women legislators to advance women's rights.

The current election system and social-political atmosphere also block women's participation in politics. For example, the Functional Constituency and Election Committee could give 1 individual with the position as employer and professional 2, if not 3, or even up to 43 votes in the same election. Home makers does not appear as a 'profession' in the Functional Constituency.  As said earlier, a very high proportion of women work in the unskilled and low pay brackets which means they are very unlikely to have affiliations to 'professional organisaitons' to be entitled to more votes.

Association for the Advancement of Feminism
Hong Kong Women Workers Association
Hong Kong Women Christian Association
Hong Kong Federation of Women's Centres
Association Concerning Sexual Violence Against Women
Hong Kong Association for the Survivors of Wives Abuse
Women's Concern Group
Queer Sisters
Harmony House Community Education and Resource Centre
Ziteng