Lina Joy has a right to marry whoever she wishes, a right protected under the Convention on the Elimination of all Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw) adopted by the United Nations general assembly in 1979.

"But if you consider her as a woman, she has her rights to marry and have children. Now, in order for her to do so, she might have to do so overseas," said All Women's Action Society (Awam) alliance and service manager Betty Yeoh.

(Syariah law stipulates that a non-Muslim must embrace Islam in order to marry a Muslim. Joy is believed to have intentions of marrying a Christian.)

Yeoh said this during a Q&A session at the New Malaysian Woman Symposium And Convention organised by women's rights group Wirda Community Service Centre (Wirda).

Yeoh was responding to a comment from a participant that her earlier lecture on women's rights under Cedaw was insensitive, as it had touched on the issue of Lina Joy's case against the National Registration Department (NRD).

Almost all the participants at the event were Muslim women.

A women's issue

Yeoh said she and her organisation had the outmost respect for Muslim sensitivities, but urged the participants to view the matter as women and not people of different religious background.

With that, her closing words were met with significant applause from the 100- odd participants.

Joy, an ethnic Malay, was originally known as Azlina Jailani but changed her name when she converted to Christianity in 1998.

The NRD granted an identification card with her new name a year later but refused to remove her religion, stated as 'Islam', on grounds that prior permission was needed from the Syariah Court.

Her attempt to quash and overturn the NRD's decision at the High Court failed when the court on April 18, 2001 ruled that she could not renounce Islam as the issue should have been decided by the Syariah Court.

She then unsuccessfully took the matter to the Court of Appeal which upheld the lower court's decision in a 2-1 decision.

Her appeal at the Federal Court is presently awaiting judgement.

Maternity leave

Another panelist at today's symposium, women's health expert Dr Fauziah Mohd Hasan, lamented that Malaysia was far behind many neighbouring countries in terms of granting maternity leave.

Based on her data which she presented, Iran gave 16 weeks paid maternity leave, Indonesia 14, Thailand 14 and Nigeria 12.

Paid maternity leave in Malaysia was recently extended from 45 to 60 days for the public sector.

She told participants that sufficient maternity leave was important for mothers to tend to their children's need, including nursing, which ideally should last for at least six months.

Approached by malaysiakini later, Fauziah said that Malaysian women's groups would attempt to push the government for the international standard of 90 days paid maternity leave.

Meanwhile, Wirda president Zuraidah Kamaruddin said that the group was in the midst of preparing a working paper on recognising homemakers as a legitimate, paid profession.

She explained that the plan, which had seen success in Scandinavian countries, aims to persuade educated women to give care and guidance to their offspring on a full-time basis.

"It is a demanding job," said Zuraidah at the press conference after the symposium, adding it has been suggested that remuneration for such homemakers should be borne by the government.