Submitted by
We would like to highlight the existing discrimination [in pursuance to economic needs -- access to employment, training, promotion opportunities, job security and wage discrimination] based on race and national or ethnic origin of a person.
Although most of the governments in the Asia-Pacific region have either signed or ratified various international ILO and UN Conventions on the prevention of racial discrimination, the lack of government's sincerity in addressing these issues have resulted in the existence of a structured or institutionalised economic deprivation.
The 1999 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices as released in February 25 2000 by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour of the US Department of State reports the following --
Wide-ranging governmental and societal discrimination against minorities persists. There are ethnic tensions between the Burmans and non-indigenous ethnic populations including Indians and Chinese. Both groups have tended to be more commercially oriented and hence more prosperous and economically powerful than Burmans, and their members commonly have discriminated based on ethnicity in hiring, buying, and selling.
The 1999 Asia Pacific Labour Law Review revealed that women in Cambodia are paid 36% less than men.
Women have borne the brunt of China's economic reform of state-owned enterprises. As the Government's plan to revamp state-owned enterprises is carried out, millions of workers have been laid off. Of those millions, a disproportionate percentage are women, many of whom do not have the skills or opportunities to find new jobs. A December 1998 Asian Development Bank report noted that almost 70 percent of the 23 million persons who could lose their jobs as a result of state-owned enterprise reform were women, even though they only constitute 36.4 percent of the estimated that 80 percent of those laid off from state-owned enterprises in Heilongjiang province were women. Women between the ages of 35 and 50 were the most affected, and the least likely to be retrained. In addition, female employees were more likely to be chosen to take pay cuts when a plant or company was in financial trouble. There have been reports that many women have been forced or persuaded into early retirement, as well. Discriminatory hiring practices appear to be on the rise as unemployment rises. Increasingly companies discriminate by both sex and age, although such practices violate labor laws.
The law promises equal pay for equal work. According to a 1997 World Bank report, Chinese women, on average, earn between 80 and 90 percent of the salaries of their male counterparts. Most women employed in industry work in lower skilled and lower paid jobs.
Women with advanced degrees report an increase in discrimination in the hiring process as the job distribution system has opened up and become more competitive and market driven.
According to 1995 government statistics, the total population of the country's 55 ethnic minorities was 108.46 million, or 8.98 percent of the national population. Most minority groups reside in areas they traditionally have inhabited, many of which are mountainous or remote. Most of the minorities in border regions are less educated than the national average, and job discrimination in favor of Han migrants remains a serious problem.
Under the two-track education system, those graduating from minority schools are at a disadvantage in competing for jobs in government and business, which require good Chinese-language skills.
Also, in most areas ethnic minorities are shut out of positions of real political and decision-making power.
Female workers in manufacturing generally receive lower wages than men. Many female factory workers are hired as day laborers instead of as full-time permanent employees, and companies are not required to provide benefits, such as maternity leave, to day laborers. Women's rights activists report that there is a growing trend in manufacturing to hire women to do work in their homes for less than the minimum wage. Unemployment rates for women are approximately 50 percent higher than for men. Women often are not given the extra benefits and salary that are their due when they are the head of household, and in many cases do not receive employment benefits for their husband and children, such as medical insurance and income tax deductions .
Despite laws that provide women with a 3-month maternity leave, the Government has acknowledged that pregnant women often are dismissed or are replaced while on leave. Some companies require women to sign statements that they do not intend to become pregnant. Labor laws mandate 2 days of menstrual leave per month for women, although this leave is not allowed in all cases.
Since 1959 non-citizen ethnic Chinese have been denied the right to run businesses in rural areas.
The Burakumin (descendants of feudal era "outcasts" who practiced "unclean" professions such as butchering and undertaking), although not subject to governmental discrimination, are frequently victims of entrenched societal discrimination, including restricted access to housing and employment opportunities. They are estimated to number approximately 3 million, but most prefer to hide their identity.
In 1953 the Government decreed that public servants with administrative authority and the ability to influence public opinion must be Japanese. Non-citizens were prohibited from taking examinations for local government positions. Nevertheless, some municipal governments began lifting restrictions on non-citizen civil servants. In 1996 the Home Affairs Ministry reversed the long-held national policy of opposition to localities lifting the nationality clause and instructed local governments to decide at their own discretion. However, the Ministry instructed local governments to restrict non-citizens' access to jobs that involved the exercise of public authority and formation of public opinion. The directive also required local governments to clearly state which jobs were closed to non-citizens. Some of the jobs considered off limits include tax collection, construction permit issuance, sanitation inspection, and firefighting.
Critics complain that opening some but not all jobs to non-citizens perpetuates institutional discrimination and the perception that non-citizen residents cannot be trusted to act in the community's best interest. The system also allows each local government to develop it own rules without uniformity being imposed by the national Government.
Concrete cases of grave discriminatory acts include
A conservative tradition has left women subordinate to men socially and economically. Despite the passage of equal employment opportunity legislation in 1987, few women work as company executives, and sexual discrimination in the workplace remains a problem.
The country is racially homogeneous with no ethnic minorities of significant size. Citizenship is based on blood, not place of birth, and persons must show their family genealogy as proof. Thus, ethnic Chinese born and resident in Korea cannot obtain citizenship or become public servants, and may have difficulty being hired by some major corporations. Due to legal as well as societal discrimination, many ethnic Chinese have emigrated to other countries since the 1970's.
The Constitution provides for equal rights for citizens of all minorities, and there is no legal discrimination against them. However, societal discrimination persists.
Approximately half the population is ethnic Lao, also called "lowland Lao." Most of the remainder is a mosaic of diverse upland hill tribes whose members, if born in Laos, are Lao citizens. There are also ethnic Vietnamese and Chinese minorities, particularly in the towns. There is a small community of South Asian origin. The implementation in 1994 of the 1990 Law on Nationality provided a means for Vietnamese and Chinese minorities to regularize their Lao citizenship, and, in sharp contrast with past practice, hundreds did so during the year. The Government encourages the preservation of minority cultures and traditions; however, due to their remote location and difficult access, minority tribes have little voice in government decisions affecting their lands and the allocation of natural resources.
Migrant workers, primarily from China, make up approximately 16 percent of the work force. These workers often work for less than half the wages paid to a local resident performing the same job, live in controlled dormitories, work 10 to 12 hours a day, and owe large sums of money to the labor-importing company for the purchase of their jobs.
The Government implements extensive preferential programs designed to boost the economic position of the Malay majority, which remains poorer on average than the Chinese minority. Such preferential programs and policies limit opportunities for non-Malays in higher education, government employment, business permits and licenses, and ownership of land. According to the Government, these programs have been instrumental in ensuring ethnic harmony and political stability. Ethnic Indian Malaysians continue to lag behind in the country's economic development. A small component party of the ruling coalition proposed in August to abolish ethnic quotas. The Government rejected the proposal.
Legal and illegal foreign workers from Indonesia, the Philippines, Burma, Thailand, India, Bangladesh, and other countries constitute about 20 percent of the workforce. These workers, who occupy a wide range of menial jobs in the agricultural, industrial, and service sectors, are not allowed to join trade unions.
Approximately 15 percent of the population claim at least one ancestor from the country's indigenous Maori or Moriori minorities. While the law prohibits discrimination against the indigenous population, a 1999 government report noted the continuing disproportionate number of Maori included on the unemployment and welfare rolls, among the prison population, among school dropouts, in infant mortality statistics, and among single-parent households. For example the official Maori unemployment rate (19 percent) is over three times that for non-Maori.
Pacific Islanders, who make up 5 percent of the population, are not an indigenous people, but they experience difficulties similar to Maori.
About 5 million Muslims, who constitute 7 percent of the population, reside principally in Mindanao and nearby islands and are the largest single minority group in the country. Historically, they have been alienated from the dominant Christian majority, and government efforts to integrate Muslims into the political and economic fabric of the country have met with only limited success. The national culture, with its emphasis on familial, tribal, and regional loyalties, creates informal barriers whereby access to jobs or resources is provided first to those of one's own family or group. Many Muslims claimed that they continue to be under-represented in senior civilian and military positions. Provinces in Mindanao that are predominantly Muslim lag behind the rest of the island in almost all aspects of socioeconomic development.
Some areas of discrimination remain. Female civil service employees who are married do not receive health benefits for their spouses and dependents as do male government employees. However, for the first time, beginning on January 2, female citizens were able to sponsor their non-citizen husbands for citizenship.
Ethnic Malays constitute approximately 15 percent of the total population. The Constitution acknowledges them as "the indigenous people of Singapore" and charges the Government to support and promote their political, educational, religious, economic, social, cultural, and language interests. Ethnic Malays have not reached the educational or socioeconomic levels achieved by the ethnic Chinese majority, the ethnic Indian minority, or the Eurasian community. Malays remain under-represented at the uppermost rungs of the corporate ladder, and, some have claimed, in certain sectors of government and the military, a reflection of their historically lower education and economic position, but also a result of employment discrimination.
Thailand. Women represent 44 percent of the labor force and hold an increasing share of professional positions. Women are able to own and manage businesses freely, and government regulations require employers to pay equal wages and benefits for equal work regardless of gender. However, there is a significant gap between the average salaries earned by men and women because women are concentrated in lower paying jobs. In practice, women also receive lower pay for equal work in virtually all sectors of the economy.
The Government classifies hill tribe groups as either indigenous or migrant. Members of indigenous groups enjoy the rights of other citizens, while members of migrant groups generally are considered illegal aliens; they possess extremely limited civil and political rights. Hill tribe members who settled in the country before a 1991 countrywide hill tribe survey are eligible for citizenship. However, eligible members frequently face lengthy delays in regularizing their status. This is partly due to the difficulty in determining the legal status of hill tribe members. Less than one-half the estimated 700,000 to 800,000 members of hill tribes reportedly possess documentation that either identifies them as citizens or certifies their eligibility for future citizenship. A significant remaining number enjoy legal resident status, but many in this category still faced employment discrimination and official harassment of various kinds, including threats of arrest or deportation. Those residing in national parks or wildlife sanctuaries sometimes are subject to eviction. Those that lack documentation sometimes are denied adequate education and health care. As non-citizens they also are barred from participating in the political process. Undocumented members of hill tribe cannot own land and are not protected by labor laws, including minimum wage requirements.
Although the Government states that it is opposed to discrimination against ethnic minorities, societal discrimination against minorities is widespread. In addition there continued to be credible reports that local officials sometimes restricted ethnic minority access to education, employment, and mail services