President of the Maldivian branch of Women in Management (WIM), Minha Faiz Rashaad has said that equal opportunity is denied to women in the Maldives despite it’s Constitutional authority and the polices adopted.

Minha made the statement in her address at the opening ceremony of the second annual WIM Professional and Career Women Awards 2019 held at MNU last night to empower and celebrate women and their work on the national level.

She said the constitution of Maldives guarantees equality between men and women, and equal opportunity has been adopted as a national policy, cultural barriers, conservative religious views and lack of education on the topic along with internalized sexism of women limits opportunities

Minha said that if gender equality is to be achieved, more women are needed in the leadership and decision-making level. And needs to be represented in the political and economic circles.

“Traditionally in Maldives, the men were involved in fishing, whilst women were hands on in fish processing and making materials used for traditional housing such as rope and thatch weaving. However, with the rise of tourism and as industrialization of the fishing industry grew, women's involvement in the industry began a steady drop.” Minha said.

She also noted that while the current Cabinet is filled with several star female Ministers, the aftermath of the recent parliamentary election 2019 increased from 85 to 87 constituencies, only 4 women MPs were elected.

The second annual WIM Awards 2019 celebrated and presented awards to 29 women in various categories along with two companies.

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