Phenomenal women and groups

To mark International Women’s day last Friday, four changemakers talk about the change they’re most proud of and the change they want to see.

Datuk Dr Raj Karim

WHEN we think of impressive changes for women over the years in Malaysia, a woman surviving childbirth probably does not come to mind. Yet that was an area of dramatic change in the last few decades of the 20th century.

Indeed, Malaysia did so well in reducing its maternal mortality ratio or MMR (the number of maternal deaths for every 100,000 births), that it was seen as a model for developing countries.

Datuk Dr Raj Karim helped lead this change. “I feel very humbled and privileged” to have been part of it, she says. She was also instrumental in other policies to protect women’s health.

She joined the Ministry of Health in the early 1970s when the child and maternal health system was being set up.

“We did all kinds of initiatives to bring down the MMR,” she recalls. They improved infrastructure as well as nutrition and family planning. They also improved the infant mortality rate.

Decades later, she used this experience again. As the regional director for International Planned Parenthood Federation, a prominent NGO on reproductive health, she was driven to improve reproductive health in the region’s poorer countries.

She arranged for specialists from Malaysia to go to North Korea to train doctors. “It was difficult. The health facilities were so barren. The instruments were not clean, there was no anaesthesia,” she said.

Dr Raj says in the future, she hopes all women - including young girls – will be empowered to “own” their health care and have all the facts to make responsible decisions. This could help prevent unwanted pregnancies and baby dumping.

Lina Tan

In the 2000s, film and television producer

Lina Tan helped empower young women with her award-winning series,

“3R” (Respect, Relax, Respond). Her co-producer was Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir. Popular with all races, the show aired on TV3 on Sunday evenings, raising many topical issues, especially on gender equality, rights, relationships and sexuality.

The show started in 1999, when HIV infections were rising among women. The only TV programme discussing issues then was Oprah. 3R won Best Infotainment Programme at the 2002 Asian Television Awards and an award at the 2003 Malaysian Video Awards. Ratings climbed higher every year for several years. Offshoots of 3R were produced in the Philippines and Vietnam. The impact was visible. “We saw changes in people,” says Lina. Children wrote in and described how their lives related to the show. Some described sexual abuse. One episode broke myths on menstruation. The show had secured sponsorship from Kotex which in itself was an achievement as sanitary napkin ads then were banned. Lina is now looking at reviving 3R in a digital format. In a recent talk among girls, she saw how the same issues, such as hararassment, still persist. This time, though, there will be one big difference. “We need to engage men and boys seriously,” she says. “We tend to ignore boys and just empower the girls. We should support men more.”

Sabah Women’s ActionResources Group

A rural outreach programme for men is one of many activities of Sabah Women’s Action-Resources Group or SAWO. The 30-year-old organisation has worked hard against violence and to better protect women and children. Today, the police, courts or hospital are more gender-sensitised and communities more aware.

In one case where a child was being abused in the interior, in Nabawan, SAWO got child protectors in action, including a doctor to examine the child. Eventually, the abuser was put behind bars.

“In the old days, (abused) women and children just got sent home,” says Winne Yee, founding member and president of SAWO.

One change she is especially proud of is the child witness room in the courts. “The child is more comfortable in a room with toys. They don’t have to be scared and worried that they have to face their abuser,” she says.

She hopes in the future, there will be more participation from “passionate men and women” on gender issues. She also hopes women will have a bigger say in political decision-making.

Women’s Aid Organisation

Serving as the platform for the voice of the survivor is a key aim of the Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO). Its executive director V. Sumitra explains WAO takes the evidence from survivors and channels it into advocacy.

“WAO is indeed the voice of the survivor and I’m so proud of that,” she says.

A new campaign on stalking was driven by the evidence from survivors. “We have a couple of clients who’ve experienced the worst effects of stalking. They’ve agreed to step forward and talk about it.”

She hopes in the future, equality between genders can transcend tradition so that it “becomes our culture”.