House, govt to work hand-in-hand for women’s empowerment

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Wed, 12/16/2009 9:09 AM | National

The House of Representatives will formulate a bill on gender equality and justice to facilitate women’s empowerment programs across the country next year.

Chairman of Commission VIII, overseeing religion, social and women’s empowerment, Abdul Kadir Karding, said here Monday that his commission would discuss the bill with the State Women’s Empowerment Ministry next year.

“We will support the passage of the bill,” Abdul told The Jakarta Post over the phone on Tuesday.

The deputy minister for gender mainstreaming, Sri Danti, said the bill would contain strategies for achieving gender equality in every sector in the country.

Sri said the bill would also provide a description of women’s rights in many sectors, especially in education and health.

She also said the bill would require that 30 percent of the total members of the House be women.

“The quota is also expected to become effective for the percentage of female officials in government institutions,” she told the Post.

Sri added that the bill, in a follow up to a decree issued by the Finance Ministry this year, also stipulated the ministry and regional financial bodies implement gender-responsive budgeting.

The ministry’s advisory member, Pinky Saptandari, said her ministry would carry out a pilot project in seven ministries for the implementation of gender-responsive budgeting next year.

She said the ministries were the Public Works Ministry, the Agriculture Ministry, the Education Ministry, the Health Ministry, the Finance Ministry, the State Cooperatives and SME Ministry and the National Development Planning Agency.

Pinky said the bill was in line with the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which Indonesia ratified in 1984.

The convention’s articles embrace various mechanisms to ensure women receive equal treatment in society, and are free from discrimination in the political, social, economic and cultural fields.

“Gender equality is one of the missions stated in the United Nations’ Millenium Development Goals [MDGs], which should be achieved by the government by 2015,” Pinky said during a seminar in Jakarta.

Other points stated in the MDGs are the reduction of the percentage of people living in poverty,
the reduction of child mortality rate, the improvement of maternal health, the fight against HIV/AIDS and the establishment of a global partnership.

Therefore, Pinky said, women’s empowerment would undoubtedly improve the country’s Human Development Index (HDI).

The 2009 HDI report, which was released by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), ranks Indonesia 111th among 182 countries studied, slipping from 109th place in 2008.

Based on the report, despite an improvement from previous years, Indonesians can only expect to live to 70.5 years on average, below war-plagued Palestinians, who live to 73.3 and Sri Lankans to 74.

Chairman of the National Commission for Women, Kemala Chandrakirana, said this was mostly because the government still lacked political will in developing the country’s human resources and women’s quality of life. (nia)