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M'sia no 1 in Asean for women participation in corporate sector

The participation of Malaysian women on the boards of public listed companies (PLCs) stood at 15.4 percent in the third quarter of 2018, putting Malaysia in the lead among Asean countries.

As for the top 100 companies, the percentage was higher at 23.2 per cent, said 30 Percent Club Malaysia founding chairperson Zarinah Anwar.

She said when the club was established in 2015, 17 Malaysian PLCs, out of the top 100 companies, did not have a single woman on their board.

Today, only one company has zero women participation on its board of directors, she said at an event to celebrate its cross-sector mentoring programme, which was also attended by Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Hannah Yeoh.

Zarinah said large market cap companies have been the focus of the club in the last two years, in its bid to make Malaysia the first Asean country to reach 30 percent women on boards of directors by 2020.

To realise the goal, 30 Percent Club Malaysia has embarked on various initiatives, including a mentoring programme launched in July 2017 to identify and prepare qualified women for board directorship.

"The mentoring serves as a pipeline effort as we hope that through the networking provided by the mentors, we will raise the profile of our women mentees and expose them to the opportunities to be included in the selection process for board seats," she said.

Meanwhile, Yeoh said the government will be providing the supporting infrastructure to allow more women to be part of the workforce.

"That’s why we are talking about a lot of childcare facilities in government agencies and also the private sector.

"For next year alone, the Finance Ministry has allocated RM10 million to set new childcare centres for government agencies," Yeoh said.

She also encouraged the 30 Percent Club to aggressively come up with recommendations to help the ministry to curb child abuse.

She said from 2013 to June 2018, there were 7,564 cases of child abuse perpetrated by the mother, followed by 5,012 cases by the father.

- Bernama

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