XN000022-1995-06-28 — Page 23

3 .

"I am confident that the Bill as it now stands will be able to achieve its objective of eliminating sex discrimination and sexual harassment," she said.

Mrs Hung said the Government was looking forward to the early establishment of the Equal Opportunities Commission to oversee the implementation of this very important piece of legislation.

End/Wednesday, June 28, 1995

Second reading of Sex Discrimination Bill

Following is the speech by the acting Secretary for Home Affairs, Mrs Stella Hung, in the resumption of the second reading debate of the Sex Discrimination Bill in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Mr President,

Today's debate marks the culmination of detailed consideration of the Government's legislative proposals to promote gender equality in Hong Kong. This exercise began to gather momentum two years ago with the publication of the Green Paper on Equal Opportunities between Women and Men, which sought public views on measures to promote gender equality. There was clear public support in the over 1000 submissions that we received for the proposals to legislate against sex discrimination and set up a statutory body to oversee the implementation of such legislation. In response to this, and having fully assessed the implications of adopting the legislative approach, we announced, in June 1994, the decision to draw up the Sex Discrimination Bill, which was introduced into this Council in October 1994.

I am most grateful to Dr the Honourable Leong Che-hung, Convenor of the Bills Committee to study the Sex Discrimination Bill, and other Members of the Bills Committee for their considerable time and effort spent in scrutinising the Bill.

Over the past seven months, we have worked hard to reach agreement on the provisions of the Bill. We have given very careful consideration to the views of Members of the Bills Committee, the Hon Anna Wu's many helpful suggestions and the submissions from various employers" organisations, labour unions and women's groups, and other deputations received by the Bills Committee. The committee stage amendments which I am going to move later on are the outcome of that careful consideration and accommodate many of the suggestions that have been put forward.