Women present status reports

CHANDIGARH, January 9: Country reports on the status of women was the highlight of the second day of the Asia Pacific Watch Conference on &q...

CHANDIGARH, January 9: Country reports on the status of women was the highlight of the second day of the Asia Pacific Watch Conference on "Challenges for women in the next millennium" here today.

Moushmi Roy of Shakti Foundation from Bangladesh said the most important issue for women in Bangladesh was of inheritance. A member of the China Women’s Federation felt that although poverty was a detrimental factor in emancipation of women, government agencies, constitutional, criminal and health laws were a significant way of dealing with conservative tendencies.

The country report on Japan stated that pornography on television was a popular source of entertainment, which was demeaning to women. The delegate from Nepal revealed that the human development report from her country had been released recently and it indicated that in the gender criteria, Nepal was ranked the second lowest, next only to Pakistan.

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Beverly Turner from New Zealand felt that in her country, sexual harassment in the work place, high rate of suicides among teenagers, child prostitution and child pornography were the most common problems. On the other hand in Sri Lanka, the government is spending 100 times more on military than it does on education and health.

In the report on Thailand, a delegate revealed that of the nearly 100,000 workers laid off due to the economic crisis, 80 per cent were women.