Welcome Guest   |  Login   |   Signup
JG Logo
Tue, May 22, 2012
Archive Search

Indonesian Women's Organizations Unite in New Group
Nurfika Osman | October 14, 2009

Share This Page
2
0
0
0
Share with google+ :


Post a comment
Please login to post comment

Comments

Be the first to write your opinion!

Representatives of various women’s organizations are launching a unified movement on Thursday that would fight policies they consider oppressive to women.

Focusing mostly on crises at the family level and government regulations they say demean their humanity, the women’s groups are set to introduce Alimat, an organization they say will address gender inequality.

“Women are being controlled by laws that are not only oppressive but also demonstrate that this country does not uphold the principles of equality and justice,” said Maria Ulfah Anshor, chairwoman of the new group whose name is Arabic for “intelligent woman.”

Some 50 women’s groups, mostly Muslim-based, have already joined Alimat, including Fatayat Nahdlatul Ulema, the women’s wing of Nahdlatul Ulema, the country’s largest Muslim organization, Anshor said. Also already signed up were Rahima, Muhammadiyah and the Coalition of Women (KPI).

Among the laws the women said were oppressive were the 1974 Law on Marriage, which allows a man to take a second wife if the first one cannot perform her matrimonial duties, and a Shariah-based bylaw that was passed recently in Aceh that seeks to punish adulterers by stoning them to death.

“[The marriage law] needs to be reviewed as it is already old,” Anshor said. “Our Constitution and the Pancasila [the country’s five principles] are the foundations of this country, so why do we have to use Islamic laws?”

The National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) said it would work closely with Alimat.

Cases of domestic violence involving women more than doubled between 2006 and 2008, as the commission reported 54,425 cases in 2008, compared with just 22,517 in 2006.

An Islamic studies expert at University of Indonesia, played down the new group’s campaign.

“Gender equality is still at the discourse level,” said Hanief Sahaghafur, secretary of university’s Middle East and Islamic Studies. “These women’s groups should reach out to women living in remote areas because they have limited access to education and economic opportunities. They are the most vulnerable ones.”