PM outlines measures for women empowerment in conjunction with International Women’s Day

KUALA LUMPUR: To encourage shared responsibility and enable women to increase work productivity, the Public Service Department and the Human Resource Ministry have been urged to look into the possibility of expanding the viability of working from home.

Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said this could be done by providing full salaries to those in the public and private sector who were caring for ill family members and to support wives with newborn babies.

“Apart from that, I also ask that a study is conducted to see whether the facility to allow working from home can be expanded to women or men whose spouses have died.

“This is to enable them to manage death related matters which normally takes a long time to be resolved,” said Muhyiddin today.

Muhyiddin said this in his virtual address to mark the 2021 Women’s Day celebration themed “Wanita Bangkit Mendepani Cabaran” broadcasted on RTM 1.

Muhyiddin also urged all parties to strive to provide safe work environment for women and to ensure that efforts to deter sexual harassment were in place.

“There must be efforts to ensure all aspects of planning, implementation, monitoring and programme evaluation are done using gender analysis through a gender responsive budget.

“The government has also provided grants to set up nurseries in the public and private sectors. Therefore, take this opportunity to provide this facility which will give multiplier impacts to many parties.

“It is also important for women to be heard at higher levels and given a role as decision makers and rightfully, according to their own expertise to boost women leadership,” he said, adding that the call was in line with the UNWomen celebration’s theme “Women in Leadership: Achieving An Equal Future in A Covid-19 World.

Muhyiddin said to empower women in the business sector, the government would provide an incentive in the form of business capital injection, called MyKasih Kapital.

He said the incentive could be utilised in businesses such as e-commerce or dropship with a maximum capital of RM1,000 each for at least 2,000 qualified recipients.

“We will also set up Skuad WAJA with the participation of women in the communities to provide psychsocial support and to heighten awareness of crime issues to stop violence against women and to strengthen general knowledge on women’s rights,” he said.

Source: NST