RIGHTS AND DISCRIMINATION

Kelly Lai (6)Li Wen Ling (9)Joyce Lian (10)Jaime Lim (11)

Ong Si Ning (13)Stacy Ong (14)

WOMEN RIGHTS

DEFINITIONS • DISCRIMINATION• the unjust or prejudicial treatment of

different categories of people, especially on the grounds of race, age, or gender.

• Right• a moral or legal entitlement to have

or do something

Are there still women discrimination and suppressed women rights?

There are still women discrimination and suppressed

women rights around the world.

Although the situation has improved, however

Workplace: wage gap

Workplace: occupational segregation

SPECIFIC EXAMPLE: ISRAEL

• Not enough women progressing to top levels of civil service & private sectors [report by the state comptroller, Justice Yosef Shapira]

• previous Israeli governments had not done enough to address gender inequality.

• 64% of the public sector workforce are women, but less than 13% of senior officials are women.

• In 2013 there were six director-generals out of a total of 30.

• Particularly bad in the defence ministry, the ministry of religious services, in government-run hospitals and the Israeli police

SPECIFIC EXAMPLE: CHINA• In the World Economic Forum’s gender gap rankings,

China ranks 69 out of 136 countries, just below Mexico, Senegal and Tanzania.

• Gender preferences are so widespread that job adverts often call for only male applicants

• Cao Ju, a recent graduate who was refused a job on the basis of her gender filed gender discrimination lawsuit against a company and won.

SPECIFIC EXAMPLE: CHINA• Despite China’s shrinking workforce, the female employment rate

has been falling. • Some factories operate by their own guidelines such as not hiring

women with children under the age of one• In 1992, male and female participation in the Chinese workforce

stood at 87% and 86%. While employment for both sexes fell as large-scale reforms of state owned enterprises in the 1990s that laid off millions of workers, male participation improved while women’s only fell lower.

SPECIFIC EXAMPLE: CHINA• There are not only fewer women working, but the gap

between men and women’s earnings has widened. • Another study on urban employees found that between

1995 and 2007, women’s earnings, as a proportion of men’s, had fallen from 84% to 74%.

Education• Worldwide, men are more likely to be

literate, with 100 men considered literate for every 88 women.

• World literacy is lower for females than for males.

• Data from CIA World Factbook shows that 79.7% of women are literate, compared to 88.6% of men (aged 15 and over)

• In some countries difference is greater

Education• In some parts of the world, girls continue to

be excluded from proper education.

• In 2010 UN estimates, Pakistan and Yemen had less than 90 girls per 100 boys at school.

• More critical in rural areas.

• In Nigerian villages less than 40 girls per 100 boys gained access to primary education [UNICEF statistics ]

Home• parents’ traditional mindset : real life for a woman starts after her

marriage and they take it as their duty to rear the daughter till she is given in marriage.

• discrimination in the family creates a remorseless cycle makes women face further discrimination when they move to the outside world.

• Growing up in a discriminatory environment affects the woman a lot & her mentality is subjected to further subordination when she goes out of home.

• She can’t help but accept inferiority and accepts judgments as her fate.

Child brides

• A child marriage: marriage where one or both spouses are <18.

• Most common in South Asia, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa

• Rooted in patriarchal ideologies of control of female behavior

• sustained by traditional practices such as dowry and bride price.

UNICEF states that:

• "Marrying girls under 18 years old is rooted in gender discrimination, encouraging premature and continuous child bearing and giving preference to boys' education. Child marriage is also a strategy for economic survival as families marry off their daughters at an early age to reduce their economic burden."

HOME: Violence towards women

• Some women in the world still suffer domestic violence today’s society.

Domestic violence is tolerated and even legally accepted in many parts of the world.• EXAMPLE: In 2010, the United Arab

Emirates (UAE)'s Supreme Court ruled that a man has the right to physically discipline his wife and children if he does not leave physical marks.

TYPES OF VIOLENCE WOMEN FACE

• Honor killings domestic violence & continues to be practiced in several parts of the world

• The victims are usually women. • killed for reasons e.g. refusing to enter an

arranged marriage, being in a relationship that is disapproved by their relatives,, becoming the victim of rape, dressing in ways which are deemed inappropriate, or engaging in homosexual relations.

TYPES OF VIOLENCE WOMEN FACE

• Stoning associated with domestic disputes:accusations of loss of chastity, adultery or the refusal of an arranged marriage

• Dowry deaths are deaths of women or girls who are murdered or driven to suicide by continuous harassment and violence by husbands and in-laws in an effort to extort an increased dowry.

• According to Amnesty International, "the ongoing reality of dowry-related violence is an example of what can happen when women are treated as property”.

Practices e.g. honor killings and stoning continue to be supported by mainstream politicians and other officials in some countries.

In Pakistan, after the 2008 Balochistan honour killings, Pakistani Federal Minister for Postal Services Israr Ullah Zehri defended the practice: "These are centuries-old traditions, and I will continue to defend them. Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid.”

Following the 2006 case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani (which has placed Iran under international pressure for its stoning sentences), Mohammad-Javad Larijani (a senior envoy and chief of Iran’s Human Rights Council) defended the practice of stoning; he claimed it was a "lesser punishment" than execution, because it allowed those convicted a chance at survival

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

STATISTICS, INFORMATION AND PICTURES TAKEN FROM GOOGLE

REBUTTAL

• Some may say the statistics given may not be reliable and women lose out because of their working capabilities not because of their gender.

• However, that is not possible. How can all the women be less capable than all the men?

REBBUTAL

• Some may argue thatUNICEF states “girls” not “women” so it is not related to the topic.

• However, women and girls are both females. Girls will grow into women. Hence, they are related.

REBUTTAL

• Some may say women are not discriminated as the South Korea president is a woman.

• However, that is only a rare case. There are many other countries with Prime ministers that are men.

• In developed countries, viewing woman as a sexual object is also a form of discrimination as it is still degrading women.