INDONESIA: Minister Confident of Bright Future for Women Nationwide

The Women's Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry has expressed optimism that regional governments will step up efforts to encourage gender equality and empower women, amid cries from activists over discriminative bylaws enforced in several regions.

“I am sure that in this era of regional autonomy, the regional authorities will want to create the best possible development for their people, and this determination will be made in sync with gender mainstreaming and child protection. It's just changing the mind-set that will take time,” Minister Linda Amalia Sari Gumelar said Wednesday.

This week, representatives from Indonesia's 33 provinces in Indonesia signed a memorandum of understanding in Bekasi with the ministry to clarify the duties and functions of the central and regional authorities in building gender equality as well as empowering women and protecting children through projects initiated by regional authorities.

“What's important is that now there is a similar and synchronized understanding, so in the next phases we hope the upcoming programs will be gender responsive and fulfill the needs for child protection,” she said after the coordination meeting in which she dubbed the signing of the agreement a “breakthrough”.

Earlier this year, the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) identified more than 150 regional bylaws containing discriminative articles, mostly centering on morality, clothing and religion.

In West Aceh, the regional government tried to enforce a bylaw on Islamic dress code by prohibiting women from wearing minimalist head scarves and tight clothing.

The allegedly discriminative bylaws are currently being reviewed by the ministry. During the coordinating meeting it was suggested the bylaws be revised.

Linda said that in the future, institutions representing the ministry should be involved in the drafting of bylaws to avoid discrimination.

There are no sanctions for regions that fail to adhere to the agreement.

Linda said the central government had limited power to encourage regional authorities to enforce the agreement, but added that it could intervene indirectly, such as by organizing awareness programs or workshops.

Deputy Minister for Gender Mainstreaming Sri Danti said the ministry would aid its regional representatives through training programs, which would also involve regional stakeholders usually involved in legislation. However, she added, in the end the representatives would stand alone.

Sri said the central government would evaluate regions' commitment to the agreement.

One of the program's under the agreement aims to promote gender equality, in line with the nation's effort to adhere to the Millennium Development Goal on promoting gender equality.

Sipora from Papua province's women empowerment division said that women in her region needed to be taught about how to avoid and manage diseases afflicting them.

“At least they should now how to take their medication,” she said.