Addressing women's interests

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Thu, 01/04/2007 2:31 PM  |  Opinion

Yoyoh Hulaiyah Hafidz, Bandung

Siti is in her early 30s and has given birth to nine children, of which four have passed away due to malnutrition. She is now in her 10th pregnancy, and recently visited a community health center (Puskesmas) with her youngest child. Siti is displaying symptoms of tuberculosis and her child is suffering from malnutrition.

Due to these conditions, Siti and her child were referred to the district hospital by the Puskesmas doctor. Siti refused to go however, saying she could not afford the hospital fees. She told the doctor that she had already walked five kilometers, while carrying her child, to reach the Puskesmas, and could not afford transportation costs to the hospital.

Siti's husband works for a rice field owner who pays him less than Rp 15,000 per day. The couple live with their children in a modest, 16 square-meter house.

Siti's story may seem absurd, or unreal, to many of those who are part of Indonesia's middle and upper classes - those who use branded goods, drive fancy cars, live in luxurious houses or apartments and eat in expensive restaurants, often spending 50 to 100 times that of Siti's husband's daily income on dinner. Siti's story is a world away from such lives.

Siti is real, and she lives only 150 km from Jakarta. There are millions more women like Siti who are trapped in poverty and are unaware of how to better their lives. Often living below the poverty line, women like Siti have no choice but to continue giving birth to ""future poor generations"". They lack access to information on how to better manage their lives, and pregnancy often occurs simply because they do not have sufficient access to contraceptives.

Siti's case is but a tiny dot in a very big circle of piteous facts on how the interests of woman and children in Indonesia are not being appropriately addressed. However, this condition can change if the number of female policy-makers grows. These must be women who are concerned about helping other women improve the quality of their lives.

There has been much progress in the four years since an election bill stipulating a 30 percent representation quota for women in legislative and executive bodies was endorsed. Upon reaching this quota, it is expected that more women's interests will be taken into account in the nation's decision-making process.

Resulting from this quota, female representation has grown in the current, predominantly male decision-making stages of government. Women account for more than 50 percent of the country's population, so the quota, albeit not mandatory, is an absolutely great advancement amid such low rates of female representation.

This law has renewed women's awareness of their political rights. Since the first national congress of women in 1928, female representation in the national legislative body has gradually risen from 6.3 percent after the 1955 elections to 13 percent in 1987. Only 11 percent of the current 550 House of Representatives members are women, but female representation in the Regional Representatives Council has now reached 21.09 percent. Women have also been elected as governors, deputy governors, regents and deputy regents throughout the archipelago.

However, women still face many obstacles in playing a strategic role in society. A long-standing social patriarchal judgment, that women are better in the domestic arena rather than in outside positions, could be one of these barriers. Not to mention other problems such as lacking financial resources to finance potential election campaigns.

Also, the so-called patriarchy trap, in which many political parties are reluctant to encourage greater women's participation, citing a lack of quality female candidates, is prevalent. Such parties ignore the fact that it is clearly their responsibility to improve the capabilities of their candidates, and not the obligation of the candidates themselves.

Hindrances to greater female representation also come from female activists who campaign for equal opportunity between men and women in the decision-making process but, due to various reasons, refuse to join any political parties.

Now, with only two years until the next general election, it is not too early to raise the Indonesian people's awareness of the importance of equal representation between men and women.

Exhibiting the roles of women who are currently sitting in the legislature and in other such strategic positions is one of the best ways to do this. Such a campaign would help Siti and millions of others like her to live a better life.

Hopefully, political opportunities given to women can be utilized in the 2009 general election.

Of course, not only basic public services such as education and health can be appropriately addressed through greater female representation, but also other important issues such as polygamy.

The writer works for an international donor agency, and is the mother of one son. The views expressed here are personal.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.