Gender equality 'still not substantive'

THOUGH senior government officials and NGOs from more than 50 countries met in Bangkok this week to review progress and renew pledges to fight for gender equality, women in the deep South continue to face more threats than Thai women elsewhere, Angkhana Neelapaijit, chief of Justice for Peace Foundation, said.
“Thailand’s response [to the United Nations on the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action on gender equality and women’s empowerment] doesn’t touch on women in conflict areas, despite the fact that many women [in the deep South] are facing many problems,” she said.
“Yet the government claims there’s no armed conflict in the country.”
In 1995, UN member states met in Beijing to adopt a platform for action to realise gender equality and the meeting at UN ESCAP here this week seeks to review the progress and renew commitment in the Asia-Pacific region. This will lead up to a global 20-year review scheduled for next September in New York in a forum dubbed “Beijing+20”. The meeting, which began on Monday, wraps up today.
Angkhana, a participant at the meeting, said 48 Thai Buddhist women have been killed in armed conflicts this year alone in the three southernmost provinces.
“Thai Buddhist women are most at risk,” she said.
Muslim women in the deep South, meanwhile, face a different kind of threat. Often times, Angkhana said, Thai-Malay women do not enjoy equal access to gender-based justice guaranteed by Thai law.
She cited a case in which a 12-year-old girl had to flee her village after a 40-year-old man approached her and made it appear as if they were having a relationship, which led to community members pressuring the girl into marrying the man.
Angkhana said Thai authorities often refused to intervene to protect Muslim women’s rights, citing religious strictures of Islam. “But the Koran states that nobody should marry against their will,” Angkhana, herself a Muslim from Bangkok, pointed out.
Apart from this, womanhood is also being used by some as a weapon to undermine a person’s credibility, she said, citing former PM Yingluck Shinawatra, whose dignity was challenged just because she is a woman.
Government representatives from 50 states in the Asia-Pacific region are expected to agree today on a ministerial-level declaration on advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Angkhana said NGOs would have to continue pushing for the implementation of the adopted ministerial declaration.

Strong national mechanism needed
Siriporn Skrobanek, chairperson of the Foundation for Women, said Thailand’s national mechanism was not strong enough and it lacked a clear direction to move forward. The framework of policy and implementation in Thailand is not based on rights, but on gender-equality framework, she added.
“Maybe we’re paying more attention to form over substance,” Siriporn, one of Thailand’s leading feminists, said. The law may protect women, but substantive equality has yet to be realised, she argued, adding “political parties have no clear policy on this”.
In his opening remarks on Monday, Social Development and Human Security Minister Pol General Adul Saengsingkaew said Thailand recognises the importance of gender equality.
He also pointed out that Thailand was the first nation in Southeast Asia to recognise women’s right to vote and added that nowadays there were more women studying at higher levels of education than men.
However, in her opening remarks on Monday, Roberta Clarke, regional director of UN Women Region Office for Asia-Pacific, said countries in the region still had a long way to go.
She also warned that gains since the 1995 Beijing meeting were not secured as fundamentalism and extremism continue to be threats against women.