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NST, Mon 7 May 2007
PETALING JAYA: Desperate for legal advice but can’t afford the fees?
Just head to the Petaling Jaya Member of Parliament’s Service Centre on Fridays from 8pm to 10pm for some free legal help.
Seven lawyers are offering free legal consultation as part of the centre’s newly launched Legal Aid clinic.
The service is open to everyone, regardless of race, income, property or savings.
Member of parliament for Petaling Jaya Utara Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun said the legal clinic was timely.
The Women and Children’s Aid Unit, which was also conducted at the centre, had received many cases which required legal help since it began operations last year.
Chew also praised the lawyers for initiating the idea.
"They have set an excellent example and I hope that other young people will offer their services and expertise, too.
"They don’t have to be professionals. If they have some skills, they can contribute through the MCA’s Lifelong Learning programme."
One of the volunteers said the MCA was a good platform for young people to gain knowledge and work for the people.
For more information call the centre at 03-78055282.
Gender equity is a complex, multifaceted concept and is difficult to measure. With the objective of making a contribution to the debate and to the consistent monitoring of women’s situation, Social Watch has developed a Gender Equity Index. This index makes it possible to position and classify countries according to a selection of indicators relevant to gender inequity and based on internationally available and comparable information.
GEI classifies 154 countries and conclusively verifies that in no country do women enjoy the same opportunities as men, that high income levels are not necessary for the elimination of gender disparities and that although over the years some aspects of women’s situation have improved their opportunities in economic and political areas are still clearly limited.
The three dimensions included in GEI are: economic activity, empowerment and education. The index’s range of values is from 0 to 100, with lower values indicating greater inequity and higher values greater equity.
Sweden, Finland, Rwanda and Norway occupy the highest positions in the 2007 GEI. These countries register the least inequality between women and men. This good performance has been achieved by the application of affirmative action policies, particularly for political quota legislation and labour market equity.
GEI presents information on 40 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, 36 in Europe, 28 in Latin America and the Caribbean, 19 in the Middle East and North Africa, 18 in East Asia and the Pacific, 6 in Central Asia, 5 in South Asia and 2 in North America. Together these countries represent more than 90% of the world’s population.
GEI was created in 2004. Here we present trends during the 2004-2007 period as well as the latest available data on individual countries.
