As mentioned in Annex 2B, the Government has all along been attaching great importance in promoting gender mainstreaming inside the Government by establishing a gender sensitive decision making process as well as promoting it to the society at large. This serves to fully implement gender mainstreaming by formally integrating gender perspectives and needs into the policy formulation process.
In addition to the gender implication assessment required for all major legislations and polices, gender-related trainings are provided to government staff (both civil servants and Non-Civil Service Contract (NCSC) staff) to raise their awareness of gender-related issues and the concept of gender mainstreaming since 2001. So far, more than 11 000 government staffs from various grades and ranks have attended gender-related training.
The GFP networks have grown considerably since the previous report, as reported in Annex 2B. Some commentators have suggested that the GFP networks should be further utilised to promote gender mainstreaming to the society at large. In this regard, LWB recognises the potential of the GFP networks and regularly provides platforms for the GFPs from various sectors to share experiences and good practices, such as organising lunch-time talks, seminars and briefing sessions on topics including gender mainstreaming, sexual harassment, good human resource management together with EOC and other relevant government departments. LWB will continue to explore ways to better connect the GFPs to create synergy.
To facilitate gender analysis and gender sensitive policy-making, the Government continues to collect and compile sex-disaggregated data. In this respect, the Census and Statistics Department (C&SD) collates and compiles a variety of sex-disaggregated statistics. Examples of such statistics are at Annex 3A.
Moreover, C&SD compiles on an annual basis a statistical publication entitled “Women and Men in Hong Kong – Key Statistics”. This annual publication provides handy sex-disaggregated statistics from a wide variety of sources, which helps reflect the social and economic situation of women and men in the HKSAR. Besides, a thematic webpage on gender statistics is established under C&SD's website to further facilitate the use of gender statistics by the general public. The contents of the publication and thematic webpage are subject to review periodically.
Initiating and undertaking surveys and researches on women’s issues is part of the terms of reference of WoC. As featured in the Government’s Policy Address in 2014, LWB and WoC commissioned C&SD to conduct a survery on time use pattern and women’s employment, and the findings were released in July 2015.
Since the submission of the previous report, EOC had conducted a number of studies that covered a wide range of topics related to sex discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, and sexual harassment. Recent examples include “Sexual Harassment – Questionnaire Survey for Social Service Sector (2017)”, and Sexual Harassment and Discrimination in Employment – Questionnaire Survey for Flight Attendants (2014).