Women’s activists started to talk about situations and expectations for the election in 2024. The issues were covering women’s participation in politics, tolerance and diversity, partiality towards women, marginal and disabled people groups.
What were the discussions? In general, they have one demand for the country’s commitment to holding equal, fair and inclusive elections.
Lilis Listyowati, Executive Director of Kalyanamitra, started an open mic to highlight reaching gender equality that was not yet fulfilled. Such as the Draft Law on the Protection of Domestic Worker. It has not yet been passed since almost twenty years ago.
‘It proved the limited consideration of women’s participation in policy-making,” Lilis spoke during an open mic that was initiated by Kalyamitra, Indonesia Women Coalition, AMAN Indonesia on August 28, 2023.
Lilis added, in the juristic document written that the participation of women in politics is 30%. But in fact, to reach 20% still became a challenge. Thus, The General Elections Commission of Indonesia should do a rounding up for voting numbers.
In addition, she encouraged the opening of a consolidation space to supervise. The public should unite to drive women’s participation in the political seats. Not only in number but also in substantive issues.
Mike Verawati, general of Indonesia Women Coalition, supported Lilis by saying that affirmative action toward women’s participation couldn’t dwindle more than the current situation.
Furthermore, Istiqlal imam – prayer leader Nasaruddin Umar also motivated religious leaders and public figures to use their roles to increase women’s political participation. They, Nasaruddin states, should use their voice to encourage women to join politics by bringing the positive meaning of hadist, the tolerance of spirit Al-Qur’an.
Discriminative policy based on religion
Different issues came from the Syura association. Suraiya Kamaruzzaman as representative talked about region discriminative policy, such as in Aceh. Qanun Jinayat in Aceh policy continued to create gender inequality and potentially cannot applied to The Law on Sexual Violence Crimes in Indonesia.
“This is evidence of the importance of women’s participation in legislative exclusive-making. I felt frustrated with women’s deterioration because their position is essential to speak about gender equality” she stated.
Ruby Kholifah, director of AMAN Indonesia, expressed her concern about bullying and threats to freedom of expression in the name of religion. She gave an example of a case in Lamongan where teachers forced students to cut their hair due to the rule’s breach of hijab-wearing setting.
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Another example was a rule for wearing hijab to all students, including non-Muslim students. For Ruby, those rules were evidence of freedom of expression violation.
Ruby added that bullying could become threats as physical bullying, mental abuse, and cyberbullying. For example, bullying that came from religious minorities and gender expression. Some students could not get a mark on their final report because of their status as “ahmadiyah.” It emerged from the forcing of single representation in religion.
The public only cared about the symbolic perspective that was campaigned by several educational institutions. It also showed in several policymaking at regional and national levels. It drove Ruby to encourage future civil society representatives and Indonesian leaders to have women and minority perspectives, open-mindedness and mainstreaming tolerance.
Not only Jargon but should responsive
Daniel Awigra as director deputy of Human Rights Working Group (HRWG) observed the participation of the public to match-matching between the presidential and vice president candidates. Yet, an action plan to solve women and minorities’ problems was questioned, such as air pollution issue, environment destruction, corruption, and human rights violations. Dewi Tjakrawinata also mentioned women disabled who often became “neglected objects”.
She expected legislative candidates in 2024 to be concerned with disabled people and have a clear work plan to guarantee their living access and equality. It also essential to include disabled people in parliament.
Olivia Ch Salampessy, vice chairman of the National Commission on the Elimination of Violence against Women, considered that policymakers and political parties should change their mindsets and perspectives. Political education about women and minority groups should be continued. Women should have a space to participate in politics and have strategic positions to be involved in policy-making. Iwan Misthohizzaman was confident with women’s leadership capacity because they have experience in social issues, are equitable, and have humanity.
The importance of Women’s Open Mic, Listen their voice
Less than 200 days before election day on February 14, 2024 in Indonesia. However, people still face serious challenges, including states’ commitment to guaranteeing women’s representation in parliament with a minimal 30%. It shows the limited existence of women in General Election Commissions and The General Election Supervisory Agency in every level – province and district level.
On the other hand, the government continues to be narrow-minded to ensure fair, truthful, and ethical elections. For the election in 2024, the government should provide information and involve people to participate. On the contrary, people only got hoax news, discriminative campaigns, hate campaigns, and disinformation that led to apathy.
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Furthermore, there was an issue with money politics. People mainly considered it normal to do so during an election. In fact, it made women and vulnerable groups challenging to participate in democracy. It would only become an arena for power and authority that focuses on dominant groups.
Election substantively should become a space to compile strategies for regulation, welfare, peace, and improve quality of life as a nation. Civil societies, significantly the women’s movement, responded to the current situation as a warning, and it should be positioned as a strategic issue so that elections still include human rights principles.
Translated by Theresia
