Highlights: Indonesia, a good student of gender equality, but can do better. Since the fall of the Indonesian authoritarian regime of Suharto 24 years ago, Indonesia has experienced real progress towards equality between men and women. But progress is uneven, in light of the incredible cultural diversity of this archipelago, the largest in the world, made up of nearly 18,000 islands. In Indonesian culture, a complex mix of ancient Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms with Islam and indigenous customs, women are mothers and wives.

Since the fall of the Indonesian authoritarian regime of Suharto 24 years ago, Indonesia, which goes to the polls on February 14 to elect a new president and renew Parliament, has experienced real...

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Indonesia, a good student of gender equality, but can do better

Since the fall of Suharto's authoritarian Indonesian regime 24 years ago, Indonesia, which goes to the polls on February 14 to elect a new president and renew Parliament, has seen real progress towards equality between men and women. the women. But progress is uneven, in light of the incredible cultural diversity of this archipelago, the largest in the world, made up of nearly 18,000 islands.

Fera, 29, has run a stall in Jakarta for 10 years where she sells cigarettes and bottled water. An informal economy that gives them no social rights. © Nicolas Sanders/RFI

By: Nicolas Sanders Follow

From our special correspondent in Jakarta,

In Indonesian culture, a complex mix of ancient Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms with Islam and indigenous customs, women are mothers and wives. Traditionally, the man provides for the needs of his family and his other half, paying most of his income to the latter in charge of the family purse strings. If in the countryside and villages it is very common to see women working, it is first and foremost in the sector of the informal economy, whether it is fruit and vegetables sold on the markets or well of the management of a small traditional grocery store, the “warung”. The income generated is therefore rather relatively low, around 200 euros per month according to the Singaporean economic forecasting firm ValueChampion. In comparison, a female employee in an office in Jakarta earns about double.

The modernization of Indonesia

which began at the start of the 2000s after the fall of dictator Suharto, and which has significantly accelerated since 2014 through the two consecutive mandates of President

Joko Widodo

, has pushed many women, often very young people, towards the cities. A relative progress, because most remain confined to service jobs. At the same time, the explosion of the manufacturing sector through numerous investments by foreign multinationals has made Indonesian women a cheap workforce.

A female president of the largest Muslim country in the world

However, gender equality was among the key demands of the popular movement which precipitated the overthrow of Suharto's authoritarian regime in 1998. The slogan hammered out at the time by the demonstrators, "Pemberdayaan", which means "empowerment" in the Indonesian language, included women's rights. The first direct post-dictatorship elections in 1999 allocated only 8.8% of seats in Parliament to women. A quarter of a century later, only 21% of them are sitting, a rate still far from parity.

But unlike many Western democracies which rightly pride themselves on authentic parity in their parliaments, Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, had a female president from 2001 to 2004, Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of Indonesia's first president after independence, Sukarno. More recently, the successive cabinets of outgoing President Widodo have recorded an average of 25% women ministers, slightly above the global average established at 22% by UN Women in 2023. Women's right to vote has never been granted here. constituted the slightest subject of discussion. Since the first election in 1955, women voters have therefore had identical rights to voters in this area, even if the political system remains in fact dominated by men. According to the 2003 law, any political party must now include at least 30% women in its leadership.

For a long time, it was quite complex to precisely determine the reality of violence against women in Indonesia. This is for very diverse reasons, ranging from the absence of reporting mechanisms available to victims, to the immensity of the territory and above all the taboo that simply talking about sexual violence constitutes. It was only in 2017 that the first national survey that could be considered reliable on gender-based violence in Indonesia was conducted by the Indonesian Ministry of Women and Children's Protection and the United Nations Population Fund. In essence, the major interest of the study was to show that the rate of violence against women in the country ultimately remained equal to the global rate, namely that one in three women is a victim of sexual violence in the country. course of his life.

Sharia and Christian customs in the same country

Women's rights go a long way in Indonesia, but it is important to avoid hasty judgments which, based on the idea of a patriarchal and predominantly Muslim society, lead to classifying the archipelago as a particularly dangerous place for women, because it t is an extremely diverse country. The province of Aceh, in the north of the island of Sumatra, remains the only place in the country where Sharia law is in force, while at the other end of the archipelago, in the province of West Papua, the religion The majority is Christianity, giving rise to completely different customs in other provinces.

In Bali, the only Hindu island in Indonesia, women have an important role both in family life and in the economic sphere where their participation continues to increase, explains renowned Balinese academic Luh Ketut Suryani, also founder of the Committee Against Sexual Abuse (CASA), an NGO based in Jakarta. The traditional culture of the Minang ethnic group in West Sumatra is based on a society that is both matriarchal and matrilineal. Parentage is traced through the female line. Among the Minang, husbands have the status of “guest” in their wife’s house!

Queens, sultanas and anti-colonial heroines

A significant number of women have been recognized as leading figures throughout Indonesia's millennia-old history. From the queens of ancient kingdoms and even sultanas who ruled the province of Aceh, to the heroines involved in the fight against Dutch colonialism and for the country's independence. One of the most famous of them and who remains a great source of inspiration for Indonesian women today was called Raden Ayu Kartini. Coming from the Javanese nobility and women's rights activist, she lived between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Her work in favor of education and the emancipation of women challenged traditional norms and the roles assigned to men and women in colonial Indonesia.

Every year, contemporary Indonesia celebrates Kartini Day, which honors its heritage and promotes equality between men and women in the country. An objective that Indonesia continues to pursue, despite the obstacles that inevitably arise. Indonesian women know this, like these words from Kartini: “

The path we have chosen is certainly not strewn with roses, it is filled with thorns. But we chose him out of love, and it is with love and joy that we will follow him

. »

Women have the same rights and roles as men to vote and be elected in the 2024 general elections, we can read on this poster in a street in Jakarta. The general elections of February 14, 2024 include a legislative and a presidential one. © Nicolas Sanders/RFI

“Gender equality is a long journey that requires collaboration between women and men”

Indonesia Business Coalition for Women Empowerment (IBCWE) is an organization committed to promoting women's economic empowerment and gender equality. Interview in Jakarta with Wita Krisanti, Executive Director of IBCWE.

RFI: What is the main issue in the fight for gender equality in Indonesia?

Wita Krisanti:

In Indonesia, we have several challenges to achieve gender equality. The first concerns the gender norms that still prevail in this country. We have therefore classified these standards into four categories. The first is that the man is the breadwinner. Secondly, the woman is the main provider of care and affection, thirdly, the man is considered the best leader and fourthly, there are jobs that are better suited to men and others that are better suited to women. I think most of the problems with gender inequality stem from these values. Women's labor force participation in Indonesia has remained stuck between 53 and 54 percent over the past two years, while men's participation is already between 84 and 85 percent. And women's participation is still mainly in the informal sector, and not in the formal sector. So there are many implications for this first step. In 20-30 years, when Indonesia reaches the demographic bonus, we risk losing our momentum because projections indicate that the number of women will be higher than that of men and if at least 50% of the population is not not economically productive, this means that the economic burdens will be much heavier. Finally, the other challenge to overcome is that when women work in the informal sector, they are not protected, have no social coverage and their rights are not recognized.

At the end of ten years of Jokowi's presidency, are the results generally positive regarding the improvement of women's rights?

No, everything is still on the surface. When we expected that so much could actually be done. Okay, people applauded Parliament for passing the sexual violence law. But the infrastructure needed to support or guarantee the implementation of the law does not exist, because the legal apparatus is simply not prepared to handle these cases. For example, the justice system continues to place disproportionate importance on the way victims dress and their behavior. So nothing has changed much in that regard, but of course we have to recognize that, yes, there is a law and it is progress compared to previous stages, but for us women it is not quite fast. So we are still far from the goal, we are only halfway. Look for example at the female mortality rate which is still far too bad.

You will not change Indonesian culture in a single day…

Absolutely. In our organization, at ICBWE, we cannot change the norms overnight, but we encourage companies to create an enabling environment, to support working mothers while offering working fathers to contribute to the education of their children and to normalize it. The distribution of domestic tasks, for example, such as granting parental leave to working fathers. Currently, the mandatory holiday is only two days, so we encourage companies to offer more than that. They may offer leave for seven days or even 40 days. So, so that these new fathers can help their wives raise the new baby. Another option, which we also develop with companies, is flexible work organization, which really offers opportunities for flexibility for men and women. They thus have the opportunity to take care of their family while benefiting from a certain flexibility to overcome the stages of their life. So this is a significant change in the company's perspective.

What tools and services do you concretely offer to companies to promote gender equality?

We offer a diagnostic tool to check where gender equality policies stand in the workplace. We then carry out cross-checking. There are therefore 77 questions on these different points. For example, do you have a policy on this? Do you have training on this and that? So this is an audit, but then we validate the results using their HR data tables. These are therefore data disaggregated by sex, for example on composition. Women and men in all endeavors and in all jobs. So we can see that even in the presence of a supposed equality policy, the data tables still demonstrate that there are more men in management positions and more women at the junior level. This means that the policy is not implemented. But our mission is not only to take care of women employees and businesses, but also to create a space where men can discuss their own vulnerabilities. We have this program called “Male Engagement” where men are therefore part of the discussion. We create a safe space for all male executives to discuss different topics related to their own challenges, including how to navigate their roles as employees, leaders, fathers, husbands…

Ultimately, doesn't the fight for gender equality in Indonesia come up against the incredible geographic, religious and cultural diversity of the archipelago?

Yes, it's true, Indonesia has become a predominantly Muslim country, but before, there were Hindu or Buddhist kingdoms, the religion was not Islam. In a sense, it was already diverse. I think the diversity issues or challenges here are quite different from those in Europe. In Indonesia, the real challenges when it comes to diversity and inclusion concern people with disabilities and people with different sexual orientations. But regarding gender equality, so we say that it is a long journey that requires collaboration between women and men. Employers need to understand that if they are not inclusive in their workplace and provide a safe space, it is a waste of opportunity for their business to grow. And above all, we must understand that men and women are not homogeneous groups. There are women who have different identities, who come from different backgrounds and who have different challenges. I also repeat that it is important to involve men in the discussion, because it is not about discriminating against them, but they must understand that we start at different levels of the playing field. Our action is to equalize the playing field. starting point. Women must be able to be equal and competition can then take place.

Indonesia, a good student of gender equality, but can do better

Indonesia, a good student of gender equality, but can do better

A female president of the largest Muslim country in the world

Sharia and Christian customs in the same country

Queens, sultanas and anti-colonial heroines

“Gender equality is a long journey that requires collaboration between women and men”

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