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Jakarta. Patriarchal religious traditions play a key role in fostering a culture of violence against women, and Indonesia is not immune to this problem, activists have said.

The activists were speaking at a discussion on Thursday as part of the UN’s Unite campaign — a 16-day global initiative held in the run-up to International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, which was observed on the same day.

Sinta Nuriyah Wahid, the widow of former President Abdurrahman Wahid, said the problem in Indonesia arose from the fact that Koranic teachers were almost invariably men, who tended to put a patriarchal spin on their interpretations of holy verses.

“We need to reinterpret the verses so that they’re no longer gender-biased, and we need women to be involved in the process,” she said.

“When we deal with violence against women, we often face practices informed by mistaken interpretations of the verses. I know this isn’t an easy job for everyone, because religious traditions are very strong — as is the patriarchal system — but we can minimize this.”

Nuriyah has worked with women’s groups for the past 10 years to get pesantren , or Islamic boarding schools, to teach their female students about the Koran. “The key is pesantren-based movements, as these schools are run by kyais, the highest authority in Islam,” she said.

“These people are highly respected in society, and most religious interpretations originate from their schools.”

She said that while it had been a struggle to persuade kyais to teach girls, the momentum should not be stopped.

Nuriyah said the patriarchal system that influenced much of Indonesian life could be eased through ongoing engagement at all levels of society, including with policy makers.

“Continued dialogue by all parties is needed to eliminate all violations of women’s rights and to raise awareness of gender and women’s rights at all levels of society,” she said.

Yuniyanti Chuzaifah, chairwoman of the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan), said her group was working with religious leaders on reinterpreting the scriptures.

“We’ve published a book titled ‘ Memecah Kebisuan ’ [‘Breaking the Silence’] that shows that if religious groups take a stand against gender discrimination, the ideas will be disseminated to their followers and thus promote gender awareness in society,” she said.

She added the book included views from Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah — the country’s two biggest Islamic organizations, which together have nearly 70 million members — as well as Protestant and Catholic leaders.

Yuniyanti also said that enlisting men in the campaign was crucial to ending gender discrimination. “We have two male commissioners at Komnas Perempuan, and one of them is from a religious organization,” she said.

“This is how we approach religious groups to get them to adopt more gender-sensitive views.”

Between 1998 and 2009, Komnas Perempuan received 295,836 reports of violence against women, 91,311 of which involved sexual violence.

The number of reports peaked last year at 143,586, although this has been attributed to more women coming forward to report cases rather than a spike in violations.