AWARE
Association of Women for Action and Research
女
慧眼會
婦女問題研究與行動
4 January 1993.
Dear Governor,
Thank you for your letter of 23 November in response to our open letter 'Democracy and the Women of Hong Kong'. We write now to take two of the issues a Functional Constituency reflecting women's concerns and CEDAW further.
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1. With reference to what are called counter-proposals to your package of constitutional reforms, we note that the press, summarising those to date, does not mention any from women's groups, though we also note that the United Democrats and Dr Samuel Wong, representative of the engineering sector, both call for a house- wives Functional Constituency, the Association for Democracy and People's Livelihood suggests one for women, and Elsie Tu asks for one for women's organisations.
We remind you that in our open letter we objected to the lack of a proposed Functional Constituency for housewives.
We ask you, therefore, to consider that, from us, amongst the counter- proposals you have already received.
In your proposed expansion of suffrage for Functional Constituencies, we suggest that one for housewives would be more appropriate; while, under the more limited suffrage at present obtaining, women's organisations would be acceptable.
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There are, we remind you, one million housewives eligible to vote in geographical constituencies; that is, one sixth of Hong Kong's total population. It is not acceptable that they, should not have an extra' vote under your proposals. note your concern for 'househusbands' and suggest that Peggy Lam's use of the term 'household manager' in her speech to Legco of 16 December is felicitous. We are not convinced by your argument that 'those who are not active in the labour market' should be excluded; we put it forward as a counter-argument and, therefore, as a counter-proposal, that 'household managers' are certinaly part of Hong Kong's economy.
We realise that to promote a household managers' Functional Constituency without giving it an overall political context is not entirely satisfactory. But our
duty is towards the promotion of Women's Rights. We are, therefore, trying to make sure that, whatever the outcome of Hong Kong's constitutional deliberations, women are not left out.
Should you eventually favour proposals put forward by others concerning a single vote only for each voter (or even in mentioning such counter-proposals), we ask you to ensure that this is referred to by your government as 'one person, one vote' (or other gender-neutral term) not, is common parlance at the moment, 'one man, one vote'.
2.
In your various responses to women's groups about women's issues, particularly CEDAW and a Women's Commission, you asked us to wait for the report of the inter-departmental working party. We tried to explain to you that it was a waste of your time and