Tenaganita director and KeADILan supreme council member Irene Fernandez was today acclaimed by a London-based international freedom of expression community for her struggle and campaign for women's rights.

Fernandez was among three women honoured by the Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) in conjunction with International Women's Day (IWD), which is celebrated around the world today.

On every March 8, WiPC highlights the cases of women activists who have faced persecution.

The other two women highlighted this year are Flora Brovina of Kosovo, currently detained in Serbia, and Konca Kuris of Turkey, whose body was recently found in a mass Hezbollah grave.

"When women do emerge as articulate and eloquent writers, they quite often use their talents to champion human rights; and the result is often that they are threatened, banned, jailed, prosecuted - or even murdered," said a WiPC press statement emailed to malaysiakini.

Fernandez, 52, is currently being charged in the country's longest ongoing trial with "false reporting" under the1984 Printing Presses and Publications Act for a memorandum she wrote entitled "Abuse, Torture, and Dehumanised Treatment of Migrant Workers in Detention Camps".

The document detailed the deplorable treatment of illegal migrant workers in Malaysian detention camps. If convicted, she faces a three-year prison term.

Fernandez is free on bail but can only travel abroad by applying to the court to release her passport, which remains impounded.

Meanwhile, non-governmental organisations and party leaders have today urged Malaysia's policy makers to view women's rights as serious issues.

Human rights group Suaram said that too often, women's issues are safely closeted as welfare issues, hence denying that patriarchy permeates in all of the country's institutions, attitudes, social norms and values in its society.

"Entrenched structures and practices such as caste, customary laws, family laws and religion still discriminate against women," Suaram coordinator Elizabeth Wong said, citing the example of marital rape which is still not recognised as a crime.

Wong called on a complete paradigm shift in the attitudes and mindset of society to stop discrimination, stereotyping and violence against women.

"Women's rights are more than legal documents and academic publications. We must not only pronounce equality and dignity but see through the realisation of women's rights," she stressed.

Wong also urged the government to immediately endorse and implement the "Women's Agenda for Change", a set of proposals put together and endorsed by more than 70 NGOs in 1999.

"To deny women's rights is to deny our own essence of humanity," she said.

Wong's call was today echoed by KeADILan president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, who suggested that the agenda be used as a starting point to improving the situation and status of women in this country.

"The Women's Agenda deserves the support of the people and must be seriously consulted by the authorities in their blueprint for the betterment of women," she said in an IWD message.

"This is because despite progress in material living standards, scores of women are still being denied their basic rights to equal wage, ample child support, decent housing and adequate medical care.

"Many more are living in abject poverty and are objects of domestic violence, mistreatment and even slave-like torture. Most of all, every woman regardless of her social standing harbours a fear that she is liable to being abused and harassed, sexually," she said.

Wan Azizah lamented that the fight against injustice of the weak against the strong, of the powerless against the powerful and of the subordinated against the superior seems to be a never-ending tale.

"Yet we must also rejoice in the strength of women who persist in the face of adversity to lend a semblance of comfort and normalcy to the everyday lives of their children, spouses, friends and relations," she added.

"In solidarity, women and men should commemorate this day to reaffirm their commitment towards building a just, fair and democratic society for all," she said.

KeADILan vice president, Chua Tian Chang, on the other hand, took the opportunity today to congratulate all women legislators who have successfully been elected as parliamentarians, state legislative councillors and senators.

"We hope that the trend of active women's political involvement will continue to progress. The support from women voters is vital for both Barisan Alternatif and Barisan Nasional. There should be a consensus by the two political fronts to place women's issues on the top priority list in their political programmes," he said.

Chua called for the government to list the IWD as a public holiday as a gesture to recognise women's contribution to development and nation building.