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The Government has allocated $23.78 million in the 2010-11 financial year to support the Women's Commission's (WoC) various measures to promote women's status, rights and opportunities in the community.
The Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, said this tonight (March 8) at a dinner organised by the Federation of Trade Unions' Women Affairs Committee to celebrate the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day.
Mr Cheung noted that the WoC advocated gender mainstreaming and had devised a checklist to help government officials to adopt gender perspectives in a more systematic way in the formulation of policies and work plans.
He said, "More than 30 policy or programme areas closely related to women have adopted the checklist and the Social Welfare Department (SWD) will be the first to adopt the revised checklist made available by the WoC last year in working out the details of the 'Victim Support Programme' announced by the Financial Secretary in his Budget for 2010-11 recently.
"The 'Victim Support Programme', with a yearly allocation of $5 million, is expected to come on stream in the first half of this year. SWD will provide subventions to non-governmental organisations to offer victims of spouse battering and child abuse cases, particularly those undergoing judicial proceedings, emotional support and relevant information on judicial proceedings and social support services."
Mr Cheung also pointed out that gender perspectives had been taken into account in the provision of quite a number of public service facilities. For example, family changing rooms are provided at 31 public swimming pool facilities and breastfeeding rooms at 21 leisure and cultural venues under the Leisure and Cultural Services Department. More will be made available in the next three years.
Turning to women's participation in public affairs, Mr Cheung noted that seven out of the 30 Executive Council members (23%) are women, including four bureau secretaries as official members, and that there are 10 women Legislative Council members.
In the civil service, as at the end of last year, 35% are women staff while those in the directorate stood at 32%. Also, seven out of the 18 permanent secretaries (39%) are women.
He said, "As at September last year, 27.6% of the non-official members of the advisory and statutory bodies are women - a significant increase as compared with the 17% recorded in June 2000.
"We will continue to identify and nurture women who are interested in and have potential for such work," he added.
Mr Cheung commended the Federation of Trade Unions' Women Affairs Committee for their contribution to the promotion of women's rights. They have not only safeguarded women workers' rights, but also organised training courses and seminars to enable women to upgrade their capabilities and bring their potential into full play, he said.
Ends/Monday, March 8, 2010
Issued at HKT 20:45
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