Indonesian Women

Indonesian WomenOctober 3rd, 2007, in News, by Patung
Laws that discriminate against women.
The recent 39th meeting of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in New York recommended Indonesia revoke all laws that are viewed as biased against women, said the Minister for Women’s Empowerment, Meutia Hatta, on 26th September.
Although Indonesia ratified the Convention 23 years ago Meutia says:
There are currently 29 laws which are gender-biased and we have suggested the relevant ministries amend them. I have heard that they are still evaluating them.
She cited the 1974 marriage law, which contains articles that permit men to commit polygamy, but not women, in the case of a wife’s infertility or inability to perform her “wifely duties”, and which also allows girls of 16 and 17 to marry, even though in other statutes such girls are considered still to be children.
Meutia said the Women’s Empowerment ministry had asked the Religious Affairs ministry to review any discriminative laws within its authority but had not yet received a response.
Meutia Farida Hatta.
She went on to say that at the meeting in New York concerns were also raised about the effect of the regional autonomy policy which had created discriminative regulations against women, such as the 2005 by-law in Tangerang, Banten, which stipulates that any woman seen alone in public after 19.00 could be considered a prostitute and arrested, as well as the various regional laws, such as this one in Malang, requiring women to obtain permission from their husbands to work at night.
Meuthia said the meeting also criticized the Indonesian government for its failure to fully integrate CEDAW convention compliance into Indonesian laws. The minister said this was because the details of the CEDAW convention were not yet known by government bodies.
CEDAW also asked the government to issue a firm policy against female circumcision.
Indonesia had not received an all negative report card however:
They noted some improvements like the issuance of the 1999 Law on Human Rights, the amendment to the 1945 Constitution, the 2004 Law on the Elimination of Domestic Violence, the 2006 Law on Witness’s and Victim’s Protection and the 2007 Law on Human Trafficking.
Tags: Law, Religion
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