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Realising women’s human rights in Malaysia : the EMPOWER report
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Elias, Juanita (2015) Realising women’s human rights in Malaysia : the EMPOWER report. Asian Studies Review, 39 (2). pp. 229-246. doi:10.1080/10357823.2015.1024100
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2015.1024100
Abstract
Why do activist groups representing some of society’s most marginalised employ legalistic forms of “rights talk” when the reality of securing rights via the judicial system is almost unimaginable? The article considers this question in relation to the work of the Malaysian non-governmental organisation (NGO) EMPOWER which, in 2012, produced the Malaysian women’s human rights report focusing attention on the rights of informal sector workers, refugees and sexual minorities, and women’s rights under non-Islamic family law. The engagement of a legalistic human rights perspective is important to this group – the existence of some constitutional guarantees for socioeconomic rights and Malaysia’s commitments to CEDAW do, after all, provide scope for activism. Yet such activities take shape within the context of rising Islamic conservatism within the political and legal system, commitments to an economic development model in which the interests of labour are subordinated to those of capital, and state authoritarianism. Attempts to engage with justiciable frameworks for human rights serve to legitimate human rights claims in the sense that claims are presented in an appropriately legalistic language. This is a largely aspirational exercise – albeit one that is tied to wider civil society led critiques of Malaysia’s political and economic system.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subjects: | J Political Science > JC Political theory | ||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies | ||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Human rights -- Malaysia, Civil rights -- Malaysia, Women political activists -- Malaysia, Sex discrimination against women -- Malaysia, Women's rights -- Malaysia, Women -- Social aspects -- Malaysia | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Asian Studies Review | ||||||
| Publisher: | Routledge | ||||||
| ISSN: | 1035-7823 | ||||||
| Official Date: | 7 April 2015 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 39 | ||||||
| Number: | 2 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 229-246 | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.1080/10357823.2015.1024100 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||
| Funder: | Australian Research Council Future Fellowship | ||||||
| Grant number: | FT 0991711 |
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