19 Jun 2015
Madam Vice-President,
This year, Singapore celebrates the 50th anniversary of our independence, and 20 years of our accession to CEDAW.
We have come a long way as a nation, and we also take pride in the progress of women in Singapore over the years.
Our women and girls are among the best educated in the world. The literacy rate for resident females is about 95%, and close to 50% of our university graduates are women.
We now have many inspiring examples of women serving as Cabinet ministers, judges, business leaders, in civil society and the arts.
Our speaker of Parliament, Mdm Halimah Yacob, became the first woman to hold this important position in 2013. We have more women in Parliament than ever before - about 25%.
But even as we celebrate the achievements of Singaporean women, we are mindful that they continue to face many challenges.
We are therefore doing more to reduce the work-family trade-off that many women continue to face.
We have made it easier for fathers to take leave from work to share greater parenting responsibilities under our enhanced Marriage and Parenthood policy package.
We are encouraging progressive work practices such as flexible work arrangements.
We are helping women seeking to re-enter the workforce by empowering them and giving them resources to learn new skills through prorgammes like our new SkillsFuture initiative.
We have also established a Diversity Action Committee in 2014 comprising top leaders in the public, private and people sectors.
Their job is to raise awareness of the importance and benefits of gender diversity, and to champion best practices to promote gender diversity.
Madam Vice-President,
Singapore remains firmly committed to ensure that women and girls are always supported, protected and empowered.
We are also sharing our experience on promoting gender diversity through international cooperation, for example, by conducting training programmes on women and leadership for our foreign partners.
Our view is that when women succeed, families, communities and societies prosper too
Thank you Madam Vice-President.
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