BREAKING

Jumat, 27 April 2018

The Situation of Women in Indonesia Nowadays



A Gloomy Picture of Indonesian Women
The Struggle to Live in an Oppressive Cage Interwoven by Imperialism and Patriarchal Feudal Vanity

When land confiscation under the name of development went rampant, when development affects the environment and inflict spring droughts, when farmers are worker in his own land guised under food and energy sustainability; when agriculture, power, health, and education subsidies are minimalized, or even cut completely; women are the most affected of those. Because as the supposed controller of family needs, it is women’s duty to ascertain her family’s daily needs are fulfilled.

Women in the midst of imperialist domination
The domination of international Capitalist monopoly system, or imperialism, keeps creating one crises after another. United States of America (USA) as the country with foremost control on imperialism is putting a leash on secondhand and parasitic system with armed aggression and intervention. Anti-USA government are overthrown, electoral voting systems which is full of manipulations are promoted, and acceleration on free trade areas which benefits the USA multiply sufferings all over the world. All of USA’s efforts mentioned above has depraved so many lives of their rights to live in their own countries, and directed monetary profits to only a small percentage of people.
Under the domination of imperialism, women are bearing the burdens:
1.                  By working 2/3 of jobs in the world (there are more women than men in the work force), but are only got 10% of the world income and control only 1% of production factors;
2.                  With 116 million of 15-24 years old girls in developing countries never have the chance to finish their education, while 2/3 of 774 millions of women are illiterate;
3.                  Women are paid less than men for the same job—even in the USA, women earns 81 cents USD, for 1 dollars a man makes. Asia and Africa has the average of 60% of  wage discrepancy between men and women;
4.                  Women and children are the makes up most war refugees;
5.                  More than 64 million underage girls are married;
6.                  One of 5 girls under 18yo gives birth in developing countries and makes up 70.000 deaths due to childbirth;
7.                  Seventy percent of populations living in poverty are women;
8.                  Thirty five percent of women experienced domestic violence;
9.                  Women only makes up to 20% of parliaments all over the world; most of them were coming from ruling class.
10.              Most victims of human trafficking who ends up as unpaid sex workers are made up of women.
Donald Trump’s election as US president will accelerate US, be it political, economic or cultural. Trump, who is portrayed as an anti-globalization in imperialist schemes, shows manipulated dramas between US and People’s Republic of China’s economic contestations, with propagandas that lies to the world. Even in a global economic meeting event,  PRC president gave out statements that are shaped to look like he opposes Trump, while in reality the two countries are interlaced in a scheme where Trump dominates, Chinese economy poses as a balance to US power, and behind it, imperialism triumphs.
Imperialists nowadays are increasing its aggressions and military interventions to expand its control and dominations. Few of USA’s imperialist actions includes:
1.      Aggressions, military interventions, and altering regimes;
2.      Ballistic support and financial back-ups for military industries;
3.      War provocations and military bases expansions;
4.      Supporting authoritarian regimes, terrorist groups, and armed civilians armies in various countries;
5.      Militarization of civil bureaucracy, national budget, academic institutions, and repressing democratic civil freedom;
6.      Resurrecting neo fascist, xenophobia, racism, and Islamophobia; and
7.      Turning a blind eye on gender-based violence, harassments, and rapes as a utilized weapon in aggression backed by the US.
US military policies will always be a link between military bureaucracy power and weapon trade industries, which is a major income source for imperialism. Major military industries will benefit with political advances between countries, such as the Middle East and European countries. Terrorism will persists—and will be elevated with the migration issue in the Europe and US by anti-Muslims policies implemented by Trump’s government.
Trump’s military policies won’t pull US and NATO soldiers in Russian borders. With NATO, Trump’s policies are driven towards ensure other military powers such as Russia and PRC do not develop, by enhancing border and international sea patrols. Trump will also continue going against insurgencies which fights for national independence or people’s movements with terrorism issues. As part of imperialism, the US will maintain its military intervention towards countries which shows signs of reluctance in obeying the US, such as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya-Mali, and Yemen.
Status quo of Indonesian women under imperialism and patriarchal feudalism domination
Indonesian women, along with women from other agriculture-based nonindustrial countries, are times worse than those of capitalistic countries. While women’s state is deteriorating, Indonesian government fails to come up with a redeeming and independent solution. Ever since the May Movement in 1998, Indonesia has been a subject to ‘democratization project’ led by the US and other capitalist countries. The agenda includes encouraging ‘moot participation’ of women as much as 30% which in lots of programs and projects—the number of women are even set to a quota in parties and parliament. Then, imperialists facilitates a few women who would oppresses other agendas and represent the interests of feudal lords, capitalist bureaucrats, and bourgeois. These women who are situated to overshadow real participations in economy-politic decision making in Indonesia contributes to manipulating Indonesia to be the third biggest democratic country in the world.
At the same time, women of lesser financial abilities, of rural upbringing are forced to stay an overshadowed subject to the women who represent the reigning power’s interest. Millions of women in rural areas has to make do with sufferings while working in factories, being sent as migrant workers, and working as housemaids in order to free the others from oppression, without any protections Up to this time, Indonesia government are riding on imperialistic policies in addressing women’s economy and social rights by subjecting women of poverty with programs like Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which is now updated to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The policies are dictated by imperialistic values, as can be seen from Direct Cash Aid (BLT), Family Hope Program (PKH), World Bank’s Conditional Cast Transfer, Bantuan Beras Miskin (Rice Aid), and Health Care Insurances, Housing Aids, Students of Poverty Aids, Operational School Aid Budget, Kartu Indonesia Pintar (Indonesian Education Card), Kartu Indonesia Sehat (Indonesia Health Card) and the likes.
Government claims that those imperialistic programs succeeds, and that women and children’s welfare are handled. SDGs targets these days, including women’s active participation, is claimed to have experienced improvement. But in reality, maternal and children’s death caused by poorly managed healthcare systems are still there, and tend to increase instead of decreasing. Low quality policies and public education facilities not only oppress women, but specifically also targets mothers of school-aged children. School-aged children who come from poverty are victimized by education system which eliminates them from the opportunity of having quality education the children deserves.
From the start of his reign, Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has put a rise on fossil-based fuel (BBM) prices, which affects to the multiplication of daily needs prices, and at one side depraved women of their already limited wages. Wages and market commodity prices doesn’t have any improvement towards the wellbeing of working caused by exporter and importer monopoly. Women are stuck in the middle, having to meet up the social construction of being able to hold a very limited family financial under control while daily needs prices are rocketing.
Oppression which takes shapes in violence and discrimination towards women in both rural and urban areas are deeply rooted in imperialism and feudalism, combined with the reign of a few people who holds power. The number of women and children who are victimized by this systematic oppression is increasing without any effort to resolve the phenomena.  Jokowi has decreed a set of economic policies which doesn’t benefits the people, especially women, at all. The policies, instead, tend to eternalise a form of society that is half colonialised, half feudal that benefits bourgeois compradors and land owners.
Jokowi’s fake Agrarian Reform program; legalizing land confiscation and monopoly, and how they damage women in agriculture sectors
Women are chained down by a variety of forms feudalism takes shapes in in rural areas. Government’s inability to provide healthcare, education, power, clean water, transportation, and communication systems strengthens the systematic chaining down. Working the same job with equal difficulties as men worker in various land owner’s major plantations, women receives way less payments than men. Women eventually falls victims to loan sharks with high rates of interests and are often can’t pay back their debts. They are often involved in child marriages, death by child labor, and the lack of healthcare system and education for their child.
Jokowi’s agrarian reform policies are also oriented in trying to silence demands coming from agriculture workers and women, who are most likely don’t have lands of their own. Jokowi’s government officially decreed that they will distribute as much as 9 million and 12,7 million hectare of lands in all over Indonesia. The ownership of those lands can fall to everyone, where there is no certainty as to what the qualification and the process of the distribution will be. Agrarian reform under the Jokowi reign is more like ‘asset sharing’ and land ownership (hak milik) certificate mass publishing. The program is a fraud because it goes against urgencies and the interests of agriculture needs and Indonesian who doesn’t own land. At the same time on the other hand, palm oil, sugar canes and other major plantations are monopolizing land in tremendous amount using foreign investment and debts as its income source. Jokowi’s agrarian reform is also unable to repossess colonial-inherited lands during the Soeharto Era, and during the following reigns. The lands that remains outside of the national possession of land are now under the possession of major plantation companies, mining companies, and national parks and conservation programs that are backed by foreign investments.
Agrarian reform is not always about lands. Lots of agriculture workers cant work on the soil of their land because they lack of budget and is eventually involved with loan sharks. Lots of agriculture workers who are finally able to work on their soil receives a minimum profit due to agriculture commodities being low in price while at the same time, other substantial resources are rocking in price. Agrarian reform are supposed to improve the quality of wage received by agriculture workers based on their burdens of works.
Women will live in prolonged poverty and under everlasting and deteriorating crises if they keep living without their own land or live with a limited land. Majority of agriculture worker are very limited in budget or don’t even have it caused by the low price of agriculture products and the high price of maintaining. True agrarian reform will work on to solving those fundamental problems, while fraud agrarian reform will only give out the illusion that agriculture workers are well-cared for while in reality working to silence their voices and tone their demands down. The same thing is painted in Jokowi’s agrarian reform which is essentially a scheme to intesifies monopoly and land confiscation.
The oppression elucidated above also happens with multiplication towards minorities (SBM). They have been a victim of forced land and natural resources confiscation throughout the colonial era, Soeharto’s regime and even now. Indigenous lands belonging to SBM are subject to mass concessions to plantation, mining and national lands without considering their economy and social aspects. Land confiscation has depraved their opportunity to advance and catch up with other cultures in Indonesia and the world.
PP 78/2015 about wage system; a new scheme of wage confiscation in Jokowi-JK’s reign and how it damages female workers
PP 78/2015 is the most recent formulation that regulates on payment and wage systems, authorized during the Jokowi era. Through the regulation, Jokowi instructs provincial governors to restrict wage increase in their respective municipalities by synchronizing with the national economic development and national inflation rate. Indonesia’s national development rate sits at the average of 5% and the national inflation rate is 3%. According to the regulation, wage raise can’t exceeds the two rates. If there’s going to be a raise, a worker has to work harder to achieve a certain amount above the rate to increase national income.
The inflict harm towards workers because their wage is way lesser than their daily maintenance budget. Now the country is only capable of controlling worker’s wage, but are not capable of controlling the daily needs price in the market. The country is also not capable of controlling the capital profit taken by corporations from the hard work of the workers.

Women and children plantation worker problems
Women and children who are working in big scale plantations has fate that is not different than those who work in the industrial sectors. Women who works in plantations still experience wage gaps, where their works are paid less than men’s. Women also doesn’t have safety insurance against chemical substances, sexual violence, isn’t granted time off for period, maternity, and is struggling with the lack of lactation facility in the workplace. Those conditions has to be bearded by the women, to contribute to fulfill her family’s daily needs.
The lack of a well-managed and conducive workplace with proportional pay for women and Indonesian people in general
The percentage of jobless Indonesian is increasing. The amount of foreign investment that is intended to repair and uplift the economy under Jokowi’s economic policy assumptions is proven to be ineffective. The existing programs are only as good as creating a limited workplace that are temporary and with a lower-than-standard incomes where workers’ risk of working in a certain workplace doesn’t go hand in hand with their payment. Even in a company where the income source is a huge investment from foreign sources, can only provide a low wage for a job with a high risk for agricultural worker who works without any temporal contract.
The condition of underpaid agricultural worker—men and women—in rural areas are still discriminated in waging and resource domination. Major companies in mining, agriculture and farming sectors are financially backed up from imperialist capital finance, have dominated and monopolized land ownership and natural resources. Women in general doesn’t have much chance of owning a land, and works in a land with underdeveloped technologies. While women with no access to economic independence in rural areas will have to sell their time and energies to work as migrant workers abroad, where there is no guarantee on their safety and the work they’ll get.
While in the urban areas, women laborers are forced to work under an unsafe workplace and risks, with underpaid wages. A lot of women workers’ democratic rights are not fulfilled. Their workplace is a vulnerable place to violence and harassments. While their risks and vulnerabilities during works are not even enough to fulfill their daily needs and the basic need prices are skyrocketing. Women who lives in poverty in rural areas has to make do with working contract-free jobs without certainties while struggling to keep their children cared for. All the while they can’t even access healthcare for their reproduction system and education fees for their children.
Core problem of Indonesian migrant workers and the lack of government protection
Migrant workers are victims of inaccessibility’s towards natural and economic resources and job opportunities both in rural and urban areas. The government’s in capabilities to provide a quality job field for the people are the main reason why women try their luck to go abroad as migrant workers leaving their families behind, ascribed to negative stereotypes, drowning in debts, stuck with manipulative broker agencies, prone to human trafficking, and with no legal protection provided by the country.
Subsidy annulment and how it affects women, the standard power price (TDL) and other basic needs prices that puts women in a tighter bind
Jokowi-JK has decreed lots of anti-people oriented policies in the 3 years of their office. Fossil fuel funding annulment and healthcare funds cancellations all caused the basic needs prices to rise further and further away from the people’s economic capacity. And the most affected of them all are of course, the women. Because they are the one often and endowed to be responsible in managing daily needs. If Jokowi’s government still refuses to give a raise to worker’s wage, then they would have to be able to control marker prices to protect workers with minimum wages.
How women’s movement cope under the hybrid of colonialism and feudal systems
Women’s movement is not something new in Indonesia, for it has been around since before and has actively contributed to the independence. During the independence movement, women are not just striving for the independence from colonialism, but also brings out women’s struggles and rights. But after all its progress through the year, the movement now has to swallow a bitter pill in the form of forced domestication.
Up to this day, the women’s movements are still predominated by movements under feudal patriarchal and imperialist’s dictations and conservatives under the country’s control. But there are also movements which hails social-democrats and reformists. But there isn’t just a few of women’s movement in Indonesia which carry liberalist ideas, another imperialist shot at women’s movement bending and altering.
The movements mentioned above are derivations of mainstream inspired by gender equality concepts which develops Indonesia and internationally. Women emancipation is viewed by the quantitative representation as indicator without actually seeing qualitative variables—such as culture, religion, and interests—each representative actually bears. From the many sector women’s movement present and developing today in Indonesia, there still hasn’t a movement which is based on Indonesian concrete reality, and for that, SERUNI presents itself as an answer to the need.
Indonesian women must rise up and build up and advanced women’s organization, together with people fighting for a better life and a just, non-violent, non-discriminative society. As a part of the women’s and people’s movement, SERUNI strives to broaden the fight and uphold nation’s democratic politics. []





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SERUNI atau Serikat Perempuan Indonesia adalah organisasi perempuan yang memiliki cita-cita kesetaraan gender dan kehidupan lebih baik bagi perempuan Indonesia.

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