Women’s Equality in the ASEAN Community 2025
On 22 November 2014, ASEAN was declared a ‘Community’ by ASEAN Leaders at the 27th ASEAN Summit. A realisation of the vision first communicated by ASEAN member states through the ‘Roadmap for an ASEAN Community: 2009-2015’, this declaration was followed by the endorsement of the ‘ASEAN 2025: Forging Ahead Together’. This in turn laid out a pathway for ASEAN to achieve its aim of building up of a Community which is “politically cohesive, economically integrated and socially responsible”. Considering this aim, women’s equality has been a key focus for ASEAN as highlighted in the 2017 ASEAN Declaration on the Gender-Responsive Implementation of the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 and Sustainable Development Goals.
This ASEAN Declaration presents a series of detailed and wide-ranging initiatives including the need to improve data collection through strengthening ASEAN’s databases, increasing engagement in political decision-making, and encouraging economic investment to close resource gaps for achieving gender equality. These “whole-of-ASEAN” initiatives and the importance of gender mainstreaming in ASEAN policy, practices and programmes were further emphasised when ASEAN adopted the ASEAN Gender Mainstreaming Strategic Framework 2021–2025 in 2022.
As highlighted in these documents, stakeholders in the region are implementing the vision of a true – and equal – ASEAN community. Notably, there should be a more focus on the integration of women into decision-making processes. The importance of an inclusion of a gender perspective in the Political-Security pillar of ASEAN is currently reflected in the establishment of the 2018 ASEAN Women for Peace Registry and the 2021 adoption of the ASEAN Regional Plan of Action on Women, Peace and Security. While attempts towards gender parity are being made, more can still be done. One suggestion would be for policymakers to engage with advocates and practitioners from women’s organisations, regionally and nationally. This would aid policymakers in increasing their awareness and contextual understanding
of the political, economic, and social structures that discriminate against women, and in turn, aid them in developing effective policies which take into account the experiences of women.
Secondly, there is a need to improve data collection in the region. While gender-specific data availability in most ASEAN member states is above the global average, others still have insufficient gender-disaggregated data collection, in turn hindering effective policy-making. Through regional platforms such as Statistics Division and the ASEAN Community Statistical System, member states can work together to develop sectoral guidelines on how to collect, process, disseminate, and use such disaggregated data as well as support capacity-building efforts.
Similarly, gender mainstreaming efforts in ASEAN should also take into account investment into women’s economic empowerment. Currently, 24% of young women in ASEAN are outside of education and employment, and 58% of women in ASEAN make less than their partners – heightening their economic inequality and overall vulnerability. This may be due to a number of factors including a sectoral and occupational bias favouring men, and the socio-cultural tendency for women to bear the brunt of unpaid care work, limiting their ability to participate in paid work. As such, initiatives which seek to improve the overall participation of women in the economy, must also work towards closing the gender gap in unpaid care work. For example, both the public and private sector should be encouraged to invest in care policies such as parental leave and flexible employment – for both men and women. This would in turn, encourage the distribution of the responsibility of care work, while also harmonising work-home balance.
Overall, mainstreaming women’s equality is a key component of building “a people-oriented and people-centered” community. Considering women make up more than half of ASEAN, they must be able to prosper – with policies specifically crafted for their unique experiences, needs and perspectives – in order for the ASEAN Community to reach greater heights and achieve success in the long-run.
