Jakarta, Feb/09 – The Human Rights Resource Centre for ASEAN (HRRC) recently held a second meeting on Women and Children study in Kuala Lumpur on January 27 – 29,2012. The meeting was intended as a venue for all country rapporteurs to present their current findings in the study after 5 month research. Two Commissioners from ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC) were present in the meeting. Her excellency Datoo Chiam Heng Keng the Malaysian Representative for Children and her excellency Ms. Rita Kolibonso the Indonesian Representative for Women along with Ms. Deepa Bharati, the UN Women Regional Manager of the Migration Programme gave their invaluable comments and inputs to the researchers’ findings.
In her remarks, Her Excellency Datoo Chiam Heng Keng expressed that she is very pleased and grateful to be invited to this meeting because the topic of the meeting on violence, exploitation and migration affecting women and children are high on the agenda of ACWC. Mrs. Chiam hoped the report will be available to the representatives as she is certain sure that the data and information from this meeting will be of great use for ASEAN, particularly the ACWC.
The rapporteurs now have couple of months to finalize their reports before presenting their findings to a regional audience in a conference. The date for the regional conference will be announced soon and the report on Violence, Exploitation and Migration Affecting Women and Children in ASEAN will then be published around June 2012.
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 Rully Sandra at r.sandra@hrrca.org.