We're celebrating women!

 I have been attending a series of events in the past ten days all celebrating Women and International Women's Day. Today I received a whole load of greetings in celebration of Women's Day and in Bangsar this afternoon, someone was handing out flowers to random women passing by (Bless them, what a lovely idea!).

Whilst all of this is fabulous, and the canapes and the conversations with wonderful women are great - it bothers me that we don't do enough for women in this country.

In the past 12 months (since the last Women's Day in fact), I have watched:

(a) women who have been forced to take steps back from thriving active careers because they've suddenly become the lead caregivers for an ill partner or parent; 

(b) women who have been forced to take a career break because they can't find proper child care or affordable childcare; and

(c) women who have been forced to become gig workers with little to no benefits, because it gives them the flexibility to work according to their care schedule

and the social and economic impact this has not only on these women, and their families - but in a wider picture, the impact it has on the GDP and the country. We talk about the importance of good childcare and support for primary caregivers, but despite consistent talk right around this time every year, we're not really seeing any real change. Women should be better supported and uplifted in these crucial roles they play as caregivers and mothers BUT - this is still a big dream which we don't seem to be any closer to achieving. 

On a more personal note, I have watched within the many walls of my office in the Zhongshan Building:

(i) as employment lawyers primarily representing employees - 

a real spike in the number of senior level (C-suite level) women who have either lost their jobs or been forced to resign or faced harassments with the view of forcing their exit from their employment, since the advent of the pandemic; and 

(ii) as a family lawyer -

(a) women who have had to start from zero, with children to support because of messy divorces;

(b) women who have sat and cried in my office because they can't afford my legal fees and are on the verge of having all their rights trampled upon by their partner;

(c) women who have all the might of the law on their side but who simply can't afford to leave their abusive spouses because where would they go? Who is going to support the children and house them until the might of the law prevails? 

(d) women being threatened by men that if they didn't tone down their rightful legal demands, these men would ensure that these women would lose their jobs; and

(e) women who have  been informed by the police that since they were merely threatened and only have bruises instead of actual wounds or fractures, their  abuser will not be charged in court. 

All of these things frustrate and anger me, and I walk around in a rage because I am helpless to fix this situation.

We need (and here's a list of demands off the top of my head, but there are a whole lot more that the Women's Advocacy groups have been long pushing for):

1. better support for mothers and primary caregivers;

2. better regulated childcare, with State controls and regulatory mechanisms to ensure that even informal childcare centers are registered and regulated

3. creches in more corporations and government facilities

4. the option of allowing people (both men and women) to work from home if they can provide sufficient cause to their employer and if their job can be performed remotely

5. subsidies and benefits to employers who allow employees to work remotely

6. a revamp of the laws and procedures regulating divorce in this country, whereby:

 - if both parties to a divorce agree to the terms of the divorce, and they have an amicable separation, why do they still need to appoint a lawyer and go through an expensive process? why can't they just fill up a form, and present themselves at JPN, and sign off on their divorce? (they do this in a lot of Europe)

- less convoluted processes for women to be able to immediately and urgently apply for relief as soon as things go bad

- a "one court file for one family" court system which means  that all records of applications in respect of the family are stored in one central repository accessible to every judge hearing matters affecting that family, whether it be on domestic violence or divorce or custody or ancillary relief or adoption or child abuse or children in need of care and protection orders (they do this with great success in some states in the United States of America)

- a police system that allows for the protection of women in instances of assault and threats of violence 

- even in cases where serious injury hasn't happened yet. 

- some sort of legal aid fund that women (and abused men) can apply to which will allow them to take a short term loan to enable them to survive pending the divorce 

- unmarked unidentified halfway houses and shelters that will take in abused persons and their children, on a no questions asked basis, and provide them with a safe space for as long as they wish or need

- an automatic referral to a guardian ad litem to ensure the best interests of children in contested divorces are met (somewhat like the Singapore system)

- a court ordered psychological assessment of children in contested divorces, where the Court deems fit (somewhat like the New Zealand system)

- court appointed lawyers to represent children in contested divorces to ensure that their rights are protected to (somewhat like the Canadian system)

- the criminalisation of marital rape (we should have done this a long long time ago to bring us in line with a lot of the rest of the world)

Don't get me wrong though. It's not as if we don't have legal processes and procedures that work. We do. But they take time. Sometimes 4 to 5 years. A lot longer time than a child in the middle of such divorces have, or a woman hampered by the care of small children will be able to sustain.  And they take a lot of legal applications - which cost money...

Well this has been a really depressing and angry post. I have to say that I didn't expect it to be so when I started. It did not give me joy. 

It's been a hard year for women, guys. And Whatsapp messages and canapes just aren't enough anymore.  I found a gif today that said "Women lifting up women is a Magical Thing" - and it's true. I would like to be one of those women lifting up women.

If you have any idea for a way for us to fix even one thing on this rant, please contact me and let's try and find some solutions.

Pictured is (a wonky photo taken by me of) Nirmala Dutt's Great Leal Forward 1. It's a portrait of a woman in despair, and the bottom is a repeated print of a pregnant woman wheeling away the remnants of her shack after it was demolished by local authorities. The Parliament house in the background bears witness to her despair and her fortitude.