Sacked by a terse e-mail

Sacked by a terse e-mail

April 19, 2009

THERE was no phone call, no reason given, and no thank you.

All Ms Braema Mathi, 51, received was a terse e-mail on Thursday telling her she was no longer chairman of Aware’s Cedaw Committee.

She was told she was no longer in charge effective March 28, the date of Aware’s annual general meeting.

‘Talk about being unceremoniously dumped,’ said Ms Mathi, a former Nominated Member of Parliament and president of Aware.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw) is an international convention adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1979. Singapore acceded to this treaty in 1995.

Countries under the treaty submit two reports, one by the state and another by an advocacy group, every four years to a UN expert committee which then issues recommendations on compliance.

Ms Mathi has been involved in preparing the Cedaw report since 2004. She presented one report to the UN in 2007, and is in the midst of finishing a second with the help of more than 20 volunteers.

‘I don’t know what I have done wrong or am not doing right,’ said Ms Mathi, who is currently doing consultancy work for Unifem.

She is not the only one upset.

Undergraduate Chen Siya, 22, who has volunteered on both past and present reports said: ‘It’s very disrespectful and it’s not the right way of doing things.

‘What they did is contrary to Aware values of allowing people committed to advocacy to continue doing such work.’

Repeated attempts by The Straits Times to contact the new Aware leadership for comment were unsuccessful.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam/messages?msg=27339.1