HRRC Launches Study on the Rights of Women and Children in ASEAN

Jakarta, Sep. 16 – The Human Rights Resource Centre for ASEAN (HRRC) has launched a study to examine exploitation, violence and migration affecting women and children in ASEAN.  The study will include country reports on all ten ASEAN Member States and is the Centre’s second research project. Researchers from at least nine of the ten ASEAN Member States will contribute to the study. 

The study is intended to provide an analysis of the many various compilations and studies already available on these issues, highlighting their relative strengths and weaknesses, as well as identifying gaps and inconsistencies amongst them. 

“These are critical for ASEAN and we hope that this study could provide a comprehensive understanding and shed light to the betterment of the rights of women and children in the region,” said Marzuki Darusman, program overseer, Executive Director of the HRRC and former Attorney General of the Republic of Indonesia. 

The lead author of the report will be Faith Delos Reyes of the Philippines National Human Rights Commission, who explained that “the need to keep our women and children safe is something that all members of ASEAN agree on. With the inauguration of the ACWC only a year ago, this is the best time for us to review how well we know urgent issues affecting women and children in our region: violence, exploitation and migration. The HRRC study will give us a regional view of how countries are addressing these issues and, hopefully, will aid AICHR, ACWC and the countries of ASEAN in formulating effective plans of action to fight violence, exploitation and abuse relative to migration.”  

The study is being supported by the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development, through ASEAN-US Technical Assistance and Training Facility, and the Open Society Foundation.  

If you have any queries regarding this study, please feel free to contact Ms. Rully Sandra at r.sandra@hrrca.org