Press Releases

Women's Commission launches publicity campaign

It is the International Women's Day (IWD) today (8 March). The Women's Commission kicked off a multi-faceted public education and publicity campaign to boost the community's gender sensitivity and interest in women-related issues, and announced the holding of the Women's Commission Conference 2002 in May.

The Chairperson of the Commission, Mrs Sophie Leung Lau Yau-fun, said the launching of the publicity campaign on the IWD gave special meaning to the event.

"It is a day for all of us to recognize the contributions made by women, to pay tribute to their remarkable efforts and achievements made over time," Mrs Leung said.

She said that since the establishment of the Women's Commission in January last year, Members of the Commission had been working with concerted effort to achieve its mission, which is "To enable women in Hong Kong to fully realize their due status, rights and opportunities in all aspect of life."

The Secretary for Health and Welfare, Dr E.K. Yeoh, said the Government was committed to promoting the well-being and interests of women. "We fully endorse and support the mission of the Commission," he said. "The Government and the Commission would work with all sectors to eliminate gender prejudices and facilitate the development of women and society as a whole."

"The Commission has identified three priority areas of actions, namely gender mainstreaming, empowerment of women and public education, and good progress has been made in all of these areas," Mrs Leung said.

Mrs Leung said the publicity and public education campaign launched today was aimed at enhancing public knowledge of the Commission's work and tackling commonly held misconceptions about the role, value and images of women as well as the ability of the two genders.

In addition to the showing of the clips which will be used on Announcements in the Public Interest, a docu-drama series on gender-related issues will also be produced. A series of community events, including a translation competition on the term "empowerment", will also be organized as part of the campaign.

A large-scale Women's Commission Conference with the theme "Women for a better tomorrow" will be held on May 10 and 11 this year to generate public discussion and raise public awareness of gender-related issues, and to bring international perspectives of women's issues to the local scene.

"International speakers and about 400 local participants are expected to attend the Conference, which will include informal networking sessions, plenary sessions and breakout sessions," Mrs Leung said.

A reception with guests from women's groups, service organisations and various sectors of the community was organized as part of the Commission's celebrations on IWD.

Also in celebration of the IWD, five mobile phone and paging companies - New Telecom Company, Telecom Services Limited, Telepaging Limited, Hutchison Telephone Company Limited, and Peoples Telephone Company Limited -- sent out a message to their subscribers : "It's International Women's Day today! Show your appreciation for the ladies."

Magnetic stickers bearing the logo of the Commission have been produced as give-away souvenirs to the public. The Women's Commission also placed supplements in five local newspapers to celebrate the IWD.

In addition, the Women's Commission today released the findings of its telephone survey conducted in February this year on the extent of satisfaction of women in Hong Kong in respect of their current state of affairs.

A total of 1,518 women aged 18 and above were interviewed. Findings revealed that 55.3 per cent of respondents were in general satisfied with their current state of life. Only 7.2 per cent of the respondents were dissatisfied with their current state of affairs.

It was observed that the overall satisfaction of women was generally related to their age, marital status, educational attainment, household income and employment status.

Younger women (aged 18 to 34), women who had higher education, higher household income and women who had never married were in general more satisfied with their present state of life.

The findings also showed that family life (63.2%), personal health (31.2%), work (22%), social life (19.8%) and well-being/education of children (19.1%) were the key areas that women were relatively satisfied with. On the other hand, the top three aspects which women were relatively dissatisfied with laid in financial status (27.4%), employment worries (23.1%), and health condition (18.2%). About one-quarter of the women claimed that there was no aspect they were dissatisfied with.

In the coming year, it was found that women wished for good health (33.5%) most, followed by income increase/ improvement in financial status (31.1%) and getting employment/changing jobs (14%). They also wished that their family members would have good health (13.9%).

End/Friday, March 8, 2002

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