Indonesia just celebrated the struggle for women'€™s empowerment by commemorating the birthday of Kartini, a hero of emancipation, on April 21.

Empowerment emphasized empowering women in the workplace, marketplace and community.

Regarding the 1984 ratification of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, an outstanding achievement is the revised General Elections Law in which the candidates for each political party participating in a general election for national, provincial and local representative bodies should be at least 30 percent women.

However, the increased opportunity did not significantly bring increased performance. The starting point for equality needs a sustained strategy to improve the quality.

The opened opportunity is not only in political parties and on legislative bodies, but also on executive ones, including having more women in the Cabinet.

However, three of the seven female ministers have been reported to police. They are the social affairs minister , the maritime affairs and fisheries minister and even the women'€™s empowerment and children'€™s protection minister.

The social affairs minister was reported by Yayasan Lembaga Konsumen Indonesia (YLKI), the NGO that is concerned with consumer rights and advocacy.

The case was about an alleged violation of the 2012 regulation on tobacco products as an addictive substance harming health, including the government role to control promotion of tobacco products by banning the product from being given freely by discount, or as a gift. Sadly, the minister gave cigarettes to people of an indigenous society in Jambi who were in mourning over the death of their members because of hunger. It demonstrated a lack of understanding about her job.

Let us promote awareness that opportunity for equality is only the starting point of the battle. The real challenge is to improve performance. There are some strategies needed from government and other stakeholders to encourage women'€™s equality in the public sphere.

Diana Elok Kristanti
Sidoarjo, East Java

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