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06/03/2013

The 8th of March, International Women’s Day, is a good opportunity to discuss gender issues with student teachers in Teacher Training Centres.

Lesson ideas for Teacher Training Centres

Below you can download an information package (in Khmer and English) as it is provided to six Regional Teacher Trainer Centers for secondary education and to eight Provincial Teacher Training Centres for primary education. This information package contains background information on gender issues and it provides ideas for activities that can be done with student teachers to discuss gender issues. The information below is part of that information package.

International Women’s Day

On the 8th of March International Women's Day is celebrated. Increasingly, International Women’s Day is a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of their countries and communities.

Women all over the world must still engage in battles to be treated equal to men. These battles vary in different countries. Examples of issues are:

  • trying to reach equal pay for equal work done by women and men
  • discrimination against women in the hiring for certain jobs and promotion to upper-level jobs because prejudice still exists
  • battles of sexual harassment at work, in school or in public places
  • gender based violence against girls and women
  • bad work circumstances in factories where mainly women work
  • in some countries girls still do not have the right to education
  • being forced into an early marriage
  • etc.

Key Facts about Gender Equality in Cambodia

Source: http://www.un.org.kh/undp/what-we-do/gender-equality/gender-equality

  • More than half of Cambodia’s population are women (51.4%), yet they do not share half of the wealth, resources and voice.
  • Cambodia ranks 99 out of 145 countries on the Gender Inequality Index (GII) in the Human Development Report 2011. GII is a new measurement replacing the Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM).
  • Over the past decade, there have been improvements on the status of women in Cambodia. Yet, they remain less visible in the public sphere. Women comprise 34 per cent of civil servants and hold 22 per cent of seats in the National Assembly.
  • Almost the same number of boys and girls attend school until the age of 14. However, fewer girls continue in higher education. Adult literacy rates are also unequal: only 70.9 per cent of adult females are literate, compared to 85.1 per cent of their male peers.
  • The number of men and women in the total workforce is almost the same (49.4 per cent women). However, more women are self-employed or unpaid family workers (83 per cent of female employment versus 76 per cent of male employment). This informal economy provides low, irregular income and unstable employment. More importantly, because many tend to operate unregistered, there is little or no access to organised markets, credits and training institutions and to other public services.
  • Like many other countries in East Asia, Cambodia has the Law on Prevention of Domestic Violence and Protection of Victims. Despite the law, 22.5 per cent of married women experienced violence within their homes and up to 89 per cent do not report the incident, according to a survey by Ministry of Women’s Affairs in 2009.