Amnesty International’s head pays visit to RI

The secretary-general of Amnesty International, Salil Shetty, paid a landmark visit to Indonesia to stress that the government’s high aspirations to take an international lead could not be realized without ending discriminatory practices against women.

According to Salil, the aim of the visit was to highlight the “very big challenges facing Indonesia” in terms of human rights, with issues related to women’s rights taking center stage.

“Amnesty is celebrating its 50th anniversary next year so its quite significant that we are meeting at this point in time,” he said, adding that this was the first ever visit made by a secretary-general to the country. “The visit is partly to celebrate important achievements in human rights in Indonesia,” he added. “However, there are still very big challenges facing Indonesia and one of them is women’s rights.”

Amnesty International is a global NGO supported by 2.8 million members and activists in more than 150 countries and territories. The organization campaigns for human rights outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights agreements. Amnesty is set to release Thursday a report that documents prevalent discriminatory practices, especially those committed by the state, which rob women of their rights.

Several other international organizations have placed women’s rights in Indonesia in the spotlight this year. An International Labour Organization (ILO)-endorsed regional conference of domestic workers’ organizations was held in Jakarta last month to discuss the protection of domestic workers, who are mostly female. In the same month, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) supported a seminar on various rights violations women experience in Indonesia’s conflict zones.

Salil told The Jakarta Post that the government must put more effort in to ending all discriminatory practices against women if it wished to escape international scrutiny.

“Indonesia is aspiring more and more to become a leader on the ASEAN regional stage and to play an increasing role on the global stage,” he added. “Thus, it will be called on more to be accountable in terms of human rights by adhering to intentional community standards.”

Indonesia will assume the rotating chairmanship of the ASEAN two years ahead of schedule in 2011. (gzl)