| Izah Azahari in Tokyo, Japan |
THE World Assembly for Women 2016 (WAW! 2016) officially began yesterday with an opening ceremony held at the Grand Prince Hotel New Takanawa in Tokyo, Japan, with this year’s theme being ‘WAW! for Action’.
Present to deliver the welcoming speech at the event was the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, who expressed that a change in the ways of thinking through actions is needed to create a society in which people from all walks of life and in all situations will be able to overcome various limitations to live and flourish in a way that befits each person as an individual.
During his speech, the Prime Minister highlighted three areas that the WAW! 2016 conference will focus on, particularly the reforming of work styles; leadership by women; and building a peaceful and safe society with women playing key roles.
In terms of reforming work styles, the Prime Minister expressed the difficulties in continuing work after giving birth to children for women which often becomes a major obstacle and hinders their activities. With this, Japan hopes to create an environment in which women can be fully active in pursuing their goals for both work and family without undue hardship.
The biggest and highest-priority challenge for them to bring this about, said the Prime Minister, is reforming their ways of working, to which he hopes Japan will be able to formulate an action plan for it no later than this coming March with first rectifying the practice of working long hours, closing unjustifiable gaps that exist between regular and non-regular employees in terms of wages, tackling overall differences in treatment including employee benefit packages and training opportunities.
“We have also introduced incentives for companies to review their ways of working,” added the Prime Minister. “This system is applicable to projects totaling roughly five trillion yen in scale”.
Under the reforming of work styles, Shinzo Abe also outlined childcare leave and measures to tackle the childcare waiting list through strengthening the support provided so women can continue working even after the birth of a child; recurrent education to help women who have left the workforce for a while in undergoing recurrent education at universities or other institutions and later receive support for their reentry into the workforce, allowing women to choose a job that matches their particular stage in life; teleworking which is an effective way to enable people to continue work while raising children; and paternity leave which aims to change the men’s ways of thinking where couples should share responsibility for household chores and child raising.
Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, delivering his welcoming speech at the opening ceremony of WAW! 2016.
The first panel discussion on ‘Building Peace in Society by Women’. – PHOTOS: IZAH AZAHARI
One of the exhibits during the WAW! 2016 opening ceremony.
Meanwhile, in terms of improving women’s participation in decision-making and enhancing their leadership, the Prime Minister explained that data has shown companies with at least one female executive officer have a 20 per cent less chance of going bankrupt than companies with executives that are exclusively male.
Lastly, in terms of building a peaceful and safe society with women playing key roles, Shinzo Abe expressed that women are exposed to major risks when conflicts arise and vulnerable women are most likely to be ignored.
“By including the perspective of women in times of conflict, we will tremendously improve the responses provided by the international community,” said the Prime Minister.
Prime Minister Abe later added that in the area of disaster prevention, at the UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held in March 2015, the perspective of women was highlighted by Japan where the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction was adopted at the conference as a framework for action until 2030, marking the first time the importance of leadership by women has been clearly laid out.
Continuing the event was a Keynote Speech by Marne Levine, the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Instagram, followed by remarks from Sadayuki Sakakibara, Chairman of Keidanren, Japan Business Federation; and Yuriko Koike, the Governor of Tokyo.
Attendees also viewed a video message from Aung San Suu Kyi, State Counsellor of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, and listened to two panel discussions on ‘Building Peace in Society by Women’ and ‘Sports and Women’.
The event also saw remarks from Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, United Nations Under-Secretary-General, Executive Director of United Nations Women; and a video message by Homare Sawa, Former Captain of the Japan Women’s National Football team.
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