Press Releases
Women's Commission publishes "Gender Mainstreaming: Hong Kong Experience"
The Women's Commission has published a booklet entitled "Gender Mainstreaming:
Hong Kong Experience" to share the experiences of application of the Gender
Mainstreaming Checklist within the Government, and further promote the Checklist
to more policy and programme areas.
The Women's Commission has advocated gender mainstreaming as a strategy to
achieve gender equality since its establishment as a central mechanism to
promote the well-being and interests of women in Hong Kong. In general, gender
mainstreaming means taking into account the needs and perspectives of women and
men as a mainstream consideration in making legislation, public policies and
programmes.
In 2002, the commission successfully secured the endorsement of the highest
level in the Government to introduce gender mainstreaming into various policy
areas on an incremental basis. To this end, the commission has �V
*designed a Gender Mainstreaming Checklist as an analytical tool to facilitate
Government officials to integrate gender perspectives and needs in making
legislation, policies and programmes;
*helped establish a network of gender focal points (mostly directorate officers)
in each bureau and department to promote gender mainstreaming in their
respective organisation; and
*assisted the Government in providing training to more than 1,000 civil servants
to enhance gender sensitivity.
With the support of the commission, since 2001 the Census and Statistics
Department has published an annual statistical publication entitled "Women and
Men in Hong Kong �V Key Statistics" which provides sex-disaggregated data to
facilitate evidence-based analysis of the characteristics of women and men of
our society.
So far, the Government has completed applying the Gender Mainstreaming Checklist
in 14 policy or programmes areas, and the checklist is being applied to five
additional areas in 2005-06.
The current booklet contains, among others, 12 case examples on the application
of the Gender Mainstreaming Checklist in Government policy or programme areas.
Examples include -
*Home Affairs Bureau (HAB) has set 25% as a gender benchmark target for
appointment of advisory and statutory bodies (ASBs). Since then, HAB and
relevant bureaux and departments have taken a proactive approach to reach out,
identify and cultivate potential female candidates for appointment to ASBs. As a
result, women��s participation in ASBs has been improving: from 22.4% in October,
2003, to 24.5% in October, 2005, and is approaching the target.
*Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) has increased the public
toilets compartment ratio (female to male) from 1.5:1 to 2:1 since April, 2004,
for planning of public toilet facilities, and Building Department issued a
practice note in May, 2005, for increase of female toilets in shopping arcades,
cinemas and public entertainment premises, having regard to the
sex-disaggregated data that women usually spend longer time in toilets than men.
*Information Services Department has included a standard requirement in their
tender documents that their bidders should ensure the absence of gender bias or
inequality in their publicity work.
The booklet will be distributed to all government bureaux and departments as
well as interested organisations for experience sharing purposes. The commission
hopes that other government bureaux and departments can learn from these good
examples, and to proactively extend the application of the Gender Mainstreaming
Checklist to more policy and programmes areas within the Government. The booklet
is also available on the Women's Commission's website (www.women.gov.hk) for
public information.
Ends/Sunday, January 22, 2006
Issued at HKT 14:03
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