THE WEAKER SEX

General news - Thursday December 13, 2007

THE WEAKER SEX

The story of Thai women is still one of discrimination, oppression and inequality

SANITSUDA EKACHAI

What is the place of Thai women in society as 2007 comes to a close? The best answer is in the statistics. And they are not very positive. While our country is in high gear for the December 23 general election, statistics confirm that Thai politics is still dominated by men. So are the top posts in officialdom.

And although women comprise half the workforce, they earn less than men in every income group. A majority of women who hold low-income, insecure jobs, are among the first to be axed in mass lay-offs during an economic crunch.

On the home front, wife-beating is on the rise. So is rape, with the ages of victims spanning from two to 80.

According to the National Human Rights Commission's draft report on the status of women, the main stumbling block to gender equality are the deeply-ingrained cultural values that endorse male superiority.

And despite better laws and state policies, the main problem is lack of legal endorsement and policy implementation.

- Politics

The draft report, which assesses the situation of women from 2004 to 2006, show that women still have little access to politics at all levels.

In national politics, before they were disrupted by the September 19, 2006 coup, women made up a mere 10 per cent of Parliament and the Senate. Equally dismal is the token representation of women in local politics.

The statistics from the Ministry of Interior paint a grim picture of political under-representation for women:

As provincial council members: 4.8 per cent; as provincial administration organisation members: 13 per cent; as municipal council members: Seven per cent; as mayors: Seven per cent; as district administration organisation members: 6.7 per cent; as district administration organisation heads: 4.5 per cent; as kamnans or sub-district heads: 2.9 per cent; and as village heads: 1.8 per cent.

Women fared a bit better in Bangkok's politics, with 15.7 per cent representation in the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration council; 15.04 per cent in district councils and 12 per cent as district heads.

Women cannot be blamed for lack of political awareness. In 2006, statistics clearly showed that women actually voted more than men in both the general election (54 per cent to 45 per cent) and senate election (52 per cent to 46 per cent). While stark under-representation results from deeply-ingrained cultural values, things are unlikely to improve after the December 23 election since women comprise only 20 per cent of the candidates.

In the power pyramid of officialdom, women make up the majority of the officials in the lower one to seven levels. Only 10 per cent of them succeed in breaking the glass ceiling to reach the nine to 11 levels, to become decision-makers in the civil service.

Under the Ministry of Interior, there is only one female governor out of 76, and only seven women deputy governors. At the district level, women make up only 0.3 per cent of the district chiefs.

That puts the Ministry of Interior at the very bottom of all ministries with only 3.3 per cent female representation in senior posts, according to a UNDP report.

The Ministry of Commerce fared the best, with 50 per cent of women in executive positions, followed by the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (38.5 per cent) and Ministry of Education (31.6 per cent).

Among the poorest performers in gender equality are the Ministries of Agriculture and Co-operatives (6.4 per cent) and the Ministry of Transport (3.7 per cent).

- Work

In contrast, women's participation in the economy is strikingly high, although they are mainly employed in low-income, insecure jobs.

Women's household responsibilities, which take much of their time, are not recognised as work of any economic value. According to the National Statistics Bureau, women make up of 45.5 per cent in the formal labour force, with the highest concentration being in the service sector (61 per cent). Interestingly, 65 per cent of women who work for their family businesses do not get paid.

While women workers are the backbone in the export manufacturing industries, they are not only poorly paid, but also badly protected against occupational health hazards. They are the first to face mass lay-offs when the export economy falters. They also face various forms of discrimination, including lower wages, lack of training and promotion, and are pressured to resign when they get pregnant, or get older.

Meanwhile, women make up 46.8 per cent of the informal workforce, struggling with low wages, lack of welfare and income insecurity. Insecure jobs are servants (92.9 per cent), home workers (76 per cent) and vendors (68 per cent).

On a monthly income basis, men earn more than women in every income group, except at the lowest rung, below 1,500 baht, where women are the majority.

On an average annual income, women household heads also earn less than their male counterparts (18,706 and 23,268 baht) despite the fact that child-rearing burdens and expenses fall on women's shoulders whether the families are together or fall apart.

With a higher divorce rate and an ageing society, women household heads will not only face more pressure to raise their children alone, but also to provide care for their ageing relatives because society puts the nurturing duty on women without sufficient state support.

- Violence

In 2006, about 3,000 women and girls in Bangkok were victims of crime, with nearly 25 per cent of victims of rape. Girls below the age of 15 form the biggest group of rape victims.

The figures from 82 state hospitals with crisis centres for victims of sexual violence showed more than 13,000 women and young girls were abused in 2006.

Meanwhile, a 2004 report by the NESDB, the country's planning agency, said as many as 100,000 women were sexually attacked per year, their ages spanning from two to 80 years. Only five per cent of them, or about 5,000, reported the crimes, due to fear of social stigma and long-drawn legal procedures.

The abusers have the same pattern: A majority are family acquaintances, teachers, friends and sometimes family members themselves. Most sexual attacks are premeditated.

Domestic violence, meanwhile, has grown more severe. Judging from media reports, news on domestic violence in 2005 have nearly doubled from the previous year, from 386 to 603 cases. More women also sought advice from hot-line services, with the main problems being their husband's adultery or physical violence.

A survey of 600 families in Bangkok by the Ramathibodi Hospital revealed that 29 per cent of women are victims of domestic violence.

If extrapolated, 5.2 out of 18 million families in Thailand may suffer the same predicament.

Domestic violence statistics show 90 per cent of the abusers are men. Violence is common with couples between the ages of 30 to 40, and after 10 to 20 years of marriage. Alcohol stands out as the principal factor in violent attacks and spousal murder.

Despite greater access to education, women and young girls still fall prey to the thriving sex trade, with Thailand being a sending and receiving country in human trafficking.

While women still routinely face sexual harassment at the workplace, other forms of violence against women are more subtle, such as media stereotyping of women as sex objects and lack of recognition for women's rights in reproductive health, which leads to unplanned pregnancies, HIV/Aids and abortions.

In family planning, the burden primarily falls on women. The use of condoms or male sterilisation remains consistently low with 70 per cent of birth control precautions being taken by women.

Meanwhile, unplanned pregnancies account for more than half of all pregnancies, resulting in unsafe abortion attempts and unnecessary deaths. Despite legal threats and health dangers, over 300,000 women seek abortions each year, according to the Department of Health, Ministry of Public Health.

In teenage sex, it was found that only 23 per cent of male students used condoms, while there are more girls than boys as new HIV-positive patients in the 10 to 19 age group.

- Tsunami, Southern violence

Women have also suffered greatly following the 2004 tsunami and the eruption of the Southern violence.

In the deep South, the number of widows rose from 550 in 2006 to 919 this year. Distressed by the losses and struggling for meagre livelihoods under fear and uncertainty, these widows face the pressure of raising some 2,000 orphans with little help.

They also face discrimination from state compensation programmes as well as from traditional inheritance rules. While the wives of suspected separatists received little help, what they receive goes mainly to the husband's parents.

After the 2004 tsunami, much of public relief for the victims were insensitive to women's needs. Relief bags did not take into account women's personal hygiene and overlooked nursing mothers. Shelters did not take into account the safety of women, and many women did not receive compensation from their husband's deaths because they did not have marriage licences.

Lack of official documents also meant that many women were not compensated for their losses of fishing gear, boats or other work tools.

- Law

Thailand has seen much legal progress to amend gender discrimination over the past few years.

For example, wives can now sue for divorce on the grounds of adultery, a privilege only men were entitled to.

Marital rape eventually became a crime, although critics say the new law still leaves much room for abusive husbands to escape punitive measures.

The draft Anti-Trafficking Act has received general approval from both the Cabinet and the National Legislative Assembly (NLA), and is awaiting announcement in royal decrees.

The draft Anti-Discrimination Bill now awaits Cabinet endorsement before being forwarded to the NLA.

While the draft Reproductive Health Protection Bill is being scrutinised by the NLA, the Medical Council has extended its professional guidelines on abortion to cover not only pregnant women with severe physical illnesses, but also those with psychological problems and rape victims.

The law has also been amended to provide special care to pregnant convicts. Male officials are also now entitled to two weeks paternity leave.

Two other laws on gender equality are awaiting Cabinet approval: The draft Name Prefix Bill, which will give women the choice of a name change after marriage, and the draft amendment of the Nationality Act, to allow foreign men who marry Thai women to request Thai nationality. Foreign women who marry Thai men already have this privilege.

- Challenges

The problems, however, are not lack of good laws or policies, but the lack of legal enforcement and policy implementation, suggests the National Human Rights Commission.

Thailand, for example, has failed to fulfil its promise to the Millennium Development Goals to double the proportion of women in decision-making positions.

The national plan on women's development remains just that, a plan. The various anti-trafficking policies and measures have also mostly failed due to lack of coordination and commitment among state agencies.

Meanwhile, the special legal procedures for rape victims are plagued with problems due to an insufficient budget and personnel. And they are available only for girls under 18 years of age, leaving a large number of women to suffer insensitive treatment and legal procedures.

So despite better laws, violence against women in various forms remains a grim reality.

Will this upcoming election help? A consensus from a recent gathering of women groups is that as long patriarchy prevails, the ballot box games offer no hope, and change will not come unless women take things into their own hands.

Bangkok Post