The women policies implemented by the People's Government in the past four years have turned from 'slogans to practice.' Now the remaining task is to come up with concrete measures that will make these policies 'touch lives.'
During the 'Women Policies Seminar' organized by the Ministry of Gender Equality on April 10, there was an evaluation of past accomplishments and future challenges in ten areas, namely, ▲establishing legal and institutional mechanisms to promote women's rights ▲expanding opportunities for women in politics and policy-making ▲establishing foundation for gender equality in education opportunities ▲Supporting life-long education for women ▲nurturing and utilizing women human resources ▲Promoting women welfare and approaching health and welfare policies with gender awareness ▲establishing strategies for utilizing women information ▲spreading values of a gender equal culture ▲increasing women's role in national reunification ▲strengthening international exchanges and cooperation among women.
Concrete measures for the above were also brought up during the seminar. First of all, there is a need to secure the rights of government agencies to demand corrective measures in order to effectively enforce the Act for the Prevention and Relief of Gender Discrimination, and to strengthen the professional skills of each improvement project. Also, penalties need to be established against the anti-discrimination clauses that have been incorporated into laws since 1998. Other tasks include applying the Equal Employment Act to all businesses with one employee and above, ensuring actual compensation to women workers on child-care leave, setting up management schools for women civil servants, implementing gender equality education for ranking male civil servants and personnel managers, seeking more active measures to help women in casual employment and so on.
One urgent task specially pointed out was protecting irregular workers - the government should step up monitoring to make sure businesses comply with laws meant to protect irregular workers, provide institutional support should they enter regular employment, and make sure that they receive the same wages for the same work done. Other recommendations include the establishment of a woman informatization agency in charge of consistent implementation of policies providing equal information opportunities to women and integrated management of women information. As for including women in reunification policies, some recommended incorporating a 30% quota for women participation.
