Hong Kong and Singapore, Asia’s Heavyweights, Must Lead the Way in Empowering Women and Promoting Equality: UN Director
March 8, 2019
By Raquel Carvalho
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UN Women’s regional leader, Mohammad Naciri, is calling on Hong Kong and its private sector to be more proactive
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He will be ‘ringing the bell’ for gender equality at the Hong Kong stock exchange on Friday to mark International Women’s Day
Hong Kong and Singapore must use their wealth and international status to lead the fight for gender equality in Asia-Pacific, according to Mohammad Naciri, the regional director for the UN agency promoting women’s rights.
“For a city like Hong Kong, it’s much easier to attract more international businesses if they are leading the change that we want to see in the world: an equal friendly city, a more socially just city, a city that promotes human rights in general,” Naciri told the South China Morning Post during his visit to Hong Kong. “And the more you find that, the more attractive it is for businesses to come.”
Naciri was recently appointed to lead the UN Women in Asia-Pacific. Prior to that, he served as director for the Arab states region. During his visit to Hong Kong, Naciri met business leaders to discuss concrete steps towards gender parity.
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He is scheduled to “ring the bell” for gender equality at the Hong Kong stock exchange on Friday, which is International Women’s Day, to encourage the business community to promote female empowerment.
The World Economic Forum’s latest Global Gender Gap report predicted that, at the current pace, it will take 108 years to achieve overall gender parity and 202 years to achieve full equality in the workplace.
“How can we accelerate? Simple,” Naciri said. “We need to bring everyone on board.”
According to Naciri, feminists have traditionally partnered with governments and civil society but the private sector must also be engaged.
“We want to reach gender equality very soon … and we cannot do that with the traditional partners alone,” he said. “The partner that has been missing is the private and corporate sector, the businesses … We are here to open that page with the businesses in Hong Kong, which are not just for Hong Kong – they are for the world.”
Naciri insisted businesses should promote gender equality, not only because it is the right thing to do but because it is the “the smart thing to do”.
“We are not here for charity or to ask for a favour,” he said. “We are here to [work on an] exchange and to have a set-up where we can both win.”
Naciri urged more businesses in Hong Kong to commit to the Women Empowerment Principles – a set of recommendations by UN Women and the UN Global Compact to promote women in the workforce, market and community. There are about 12,000 businesses – 609 in Asia-Pacific – currently subscribed.
“We need to create a more gender-equal environment – companies committed to have women receiving the same remuneration as men for the same job, granting not only maternity leave but also paternity, creating day care facilities for the children, making sure they have more women in management and on boards,” Naciri said.
“By achieving parity across different levels within the business sector … [companies] will also make more profit and they will also be more sustainable.
“[From a client’s perspective], buying products from a certain company that is promoting gender equality means that they are not just buying a product or service, they are also buying the hope of a better world.”
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Women in Asia-Pacific are still under-represented in decision-making and leadership roles. As of 2017, fewer than one in five parliamentarians in the region were women, UN statistics show. Furthermore, women in formal employment earn much less than men: the region’s gender pay gaps range from 1.5 per cent to 49.6 per cent.
The statistics also reveal poverty rates among working populations in South and Southwest Asia remain particularly high: 30.9 per cent for women and 25.4 per cent for men.
Women are not only economically worse off – they also have less access to the internet and are more likely to suffer violence. One-third of women in South and Southwest Asia are married or in a union by the age of 18, and half reported physical and/or sexual abuse from an intimate partner in the previous year.
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Naciri identified economic empowerment and confronting violence against women as his top priorities, even though these challenges present themselves in different forms in different parts of the region.
“With better economic status, women can also look at dealing with other challenges,” he said. “Economically empowered women can say no to violence, can better participate in politics in countries where conflict is present, they can hold a position on the table of negotiation. Economic empowerment is key to solve many other issues that women and girls are facing.”