*********************************************************
Following is the speech by the Chief Secretary, Mr Stephen Lam, delivered at the Cocktail Reception cum Exhibition on Women's Groups and Services for Women to celebrate International Women's Day 2012 organised by the Women's Commission at the Central Government Offices in Tamar this evening (March 8):
Stella (Mrs Stella Lau), Matthew (SLW), Deputy Director Guo (Li), friends,
I'm reminded that Hong Kong is a biliterate, trilingual society, so I'm required also to speak in the other channel, the Pearl channel.
Florence and myself are very pleased today to be joining you for the celebration of March 8, International Women's Day.
I'd like to say that among the several hundred advisory boards and committees of the Government, the Women's Commission is one of the most important. Since its establishment in 2001, we have pursued a strategy on three prongs: firstly, enabling; secondly, empowerment; and thirdly, education. All these strategies are intended to enhance the position of women in Hong Kong society. I think we have made substantive and appreciable progress over the course of the last decade, and I'd like to cite three aspects.
Firstly, the participation rate of the female sex in our advisory boards and committees has increased in recent years from about 26 per cent (in 2007) to 31 per cent (last year). The members of the cabinet do not regard this as sufficient progress and we government secretaries will all continue to pursue the increase of this participation rate in all our boards and committees in the years ahead.
Also, among the teams of government officials, there are some very able female colleagues. We have three policy secretaries who are women, an increasing number of directorate officers are now of the female sex. In conducting recruitment boards over the years, we have discovered that very often female candidates are more fluent and more to the point in their responses. Some of the most able deputy secretaries of policy bureaus and deputy directors of various departments are female colleagues. So my personal forecast is that within about 10 years, we may well see about half, or even a majority, of heads of departments in the Hong Kong Government – these positions would be occupied by female colleagues.
Also within the Government, in about 40 programme and policy areas, we have an established practice of gender mainstreaming checklist, and we have designated officers to be Gender Focal Points. It is the daily, weekly, monthly and ongoing responsibility of these colleagues to make sure that our programmes and policies are consistent with the promotion of the status of women in Hong Kong society.
Thirdly and finally, I'd like to say that in recent years, the HKSAR Government has adopted policies which facilitate, which enable, the female sex to participate further in economic activities. Just last year we enacted and implemented the statutory minimum wage law. We also have put in place a transport subsidy to supplement the means of grass-roots families. Under the Community Care Fund, which I chair, we recently adopted a programme of providing after-school care for students. These measures, we believe, will enable members of the female sex in our community to participate more widely in economic activities and to improve the livelihood of their families. All these are to the betterment of Hong Kong and to the enhancement of the position of women in our midst.
As a man, I have to say that without our spouses, our mothers and our mothers-in-law, our lives will be very different and certainly not as favourable as we have it today. So thank you very much for your contribution to Hong Kong society.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the speech)
Ends/Thursday, March 8, 2012
Issued at HKT 22:42
NNNN
Windows Media format
Flash format