Dr Denison Jayasooria : YSS Executive Director
The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia has established a steering committee to explore the issues and concerns regarding the realisation of economic, social and cultural rights of all Malaysians with a special focus on marginalised communities within Malaysian society.
Tan Sri R. Navaratnam who is a Commissioner of the Malaysian Human Rights Commission, chaired the first meeting on March 11, 2003 at the Commission’s office in Kuala Lumpur. Two other commissioners, Datuk Dr Raj Karim and Dr Hirman Abdullah were present, together with representatives from four NGOs namely Paul Selvaraj from Yayasan Salam, Kon Onn Sein from Foundation for Community Studies and Development, Ms Carol from ERA Consumer, Thiruselvam and myself from YSS.
The two hours meeting focused on working the objectives, terms of reference and methodology to be adopted by this committee of the Commission. It was noted that among the NGOs and academics there is already a wealth of information on the economic, social and cultural rights of marginalized sections of Malaysian society. What is needed is the know-how to co-ordinate and network with those already working on these issues to bring them together and draw out the implications for policy formulation at the macro level.
It was agreed that a dual approach will be adopted which on one hand will focus on specific marginalized groups such as rural or urban poor, plantation workers, disabled people, indigenous people and all others deprived of access to basic needs. In addition an issues approach will also be adopted such us matters relating to health, education, housing, welfare and social security.
Another area for study, discussion and target setting is on persuading the Malaysian government to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). This is because as pointed out by Tan Sri Navaratnam, the ICESCR is “to ensure protection of the rights to work, to fair and adequate employment, to education, to social security, to adequate mental and physical health, to appropriate shelter and to reasonable standards of living for all. It seeks to protect the family and minority languages and cultures. The Covenant is designed to promote social progress, freedom from want and better standards of life as called by the Universal Declaration”.
The meeting concluded on a positive note and all present giving their commitment to establishing and strengthening this special committee. A number of practical tasks were identified:-
1. To rewrite the framework paper with details on objectives, terms of reference, & methodology.
2. To identify & list out all the resource persons by marginalized groups and issues
3. To gather all the published works, reports, and research documents on relevant themes.
4. The Commission secretariat will facilitate the above four with the assistance of all present and call for the second meeting in a month’s time.
(Submitted on 17th March 2003)
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