Note: This event will take place on 6/18 from 3:00 PM SGT (Singapore time).

While 2020 has not been a banner year for anyone around the globe, it has been a particularly miserable one for Malaysian women. The baby steps towards equality achieved under the Pakatan Harapan government (the first female Deputy Prime Minister, the highest number of women Ministers in the Cabinet) have largely been swept away by the coup that instated the Perikatan Nasional government. Although there are still five women Ministers, they are a smaller proportion of a vastly inflated Executive. Worse still, the quality of these Ministers, in particular the Minister for Women, Family and Community Development and her Deputy, is wanting. In fact, their attitudes towards women are regressive. Additionally, ten women who had been appointed by Pakatan Harapan to head various government bodies including MARA, Malaysia Airports Bhd, and Prasarana were removed almost as soon as Perikatan Nasional took power. They were all replaced by politicians, mostly men; this was seen as an enticement for these politicians to stay loyal to PN and not return to the PH fold.

While change was slow under the PH government, these moves by PN have been particularly disastrous for women. This webinar will discuss why this is, and what the future holds for women as long as PN remains in power.

The speaker, Marina Mahathir, is a writer and women’s rights and HIV/AIDS activist. She previously served as the President of the Malaysian AIDS Council (1993-2005) and the Board of Sisters in Islam (2010-2016). Mahathir has authored three compilations of her newspaper columns, In Liberal Doses (1997), Telling It Straight (2012), and Dancing on Thin Ice (2015). In 2010, Marina was named the UN Person of the Year by the United Nations in Malaysia. In 2016, Marina received France’s highest award, the Chevalier de la Legion D’Honneur in recognition of her work in HIV and women’s rights.

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