Asia Rugby announces Women’s Advisory Committee on International Women’s Day #IWD2020

Asia Rugby and it’s member unions celebrated International Women’s Day #IWD2020. Asia Rugby has taken a lead in gender inclusion at all levels of the game.

Asia Rugby President took the opportunity to announce Asia Rugby Women’s Advisory Committee on International Women’s Day.

In announcing the committee Asia Rugby President Qais Al Dhalai said: “For us this is one of the most important committees and the biggest we have.

We have included women from all regions and from different fields. Our goal is for women to be an integral part of the game, not just in terms of playing but as leaders, match officials, coaches, educators, medical staff, mentors and fans.

We hope that the women on the committee will be our future leaders and will move into heading other committees.

I wish everyone a happy International Women’s Day. I pledge that under my leadership, Asia Rugby’s commitment to growing the women’s game will go beyond just the rugby field as we support future women leaders in all aspect of rugby.”

Women’s Advisory Committee

Asia Rugby Women’s Advisory Committee with be chaired by Ada Milby who is also one of Asia Rugby Representatives on World Rugby Council.

She is will be assisted by 1st Deputy: Karina Soerjanatamiharjada (Indonesia) who was last year’s winner of Asia Rugby Women’s Development Award and by 2nd Deputy Nahid Biyarjomandi (Iran) one of the four women from Asia to be selected for the World Rugby Unstoppable campaign.

Other members of the committee are:
Javeria Hassan (Pakistan), Keiko Asami (Japan), Grace Guo (China), Byambabuted Yesun-Erdene (Mongolia), Farah Al Huneidi (Jordan), Sanaya Mehta Vyas (India), Kim Kan (Hong Kong), Umida Djalilova (Uzbekistan), Nur Faizah (Indonesia), Viengsamai Souksavanh (Laos).

Ada Milby commented “Women’s rugby in Asia is going from strength to strength. With the inclusion of 4 women in World Rugby’s Unstoppables Campaign, Malaysia and India saw an increase of 30%, and Iran an incredible 200% increase in registered players!

For this International Women’s Day, I encourage all unions to promote their Unstoppables and see what happens when women in rugby are promoted and celebrated.”

Asia Rugby has always taken the lead and was the first of World Ruby’s (WR) Regional Associations to support the WR Gender Balance policy. Ada Milby was unanimously appointed by Asia Rugby’s Executive Committee to be the Regional Association’s first ever female representative on the World Rugby Council.

Asia Rugby also took the lead in as it announced new individual naming structure for all of their tournaments to align them in gender equity.

From July 2019 onwards, each tournament has specific name either a Men’s or Women’s competition. The move is to further emphasise the equal status of both men and women in rugby in Asia.

Photo Credit: Enzo Baudino / Lebanon Rugby