Dharma Wanita needs to change: Saparinah

Dharma Wanita needs to change: Saparinah

DEPOK, West Java (JP): An advocate of women's' rights said on
Tuesday that there should be changes in Dharma Wanita, the
organization of all female civil servants and their male
counterparts' wives are obliged to join.

Saparinah Sadli, a noted psychologist and chairwoman of the
National Commission on Violence Against Women, stressed that
while she realized it was difficult to change the membership
regulation, the reform era should provide a good opportunity to
do so.

"Women must be given options; for instance, they could be
active in other groups and not necessarily have to join Dharma
Wanita," she said. She cited a newly formed group on awareness of
the elections, Gerakan Perempuan Sadar Pemilu (Women's Movement
for Electoral Awareness).

Established in 1974, initially as a voluntary organization,
political analysts say that Dharma Wanita has been influential in
ensuring Golkar gets the general election votes of wives and
relatives of millions of civil servants.

Saparinah, also a member of the National Commission on Human
Rights, admitted the members would find it very difficult to cut
themselves away from Dharma Wanita. Wives of civil servants have
been told they could hamper their husbands' careers if they
failed to be active in the organization.

"The organization has been established for quite some time.
The system has been crystallized as symbols of their husbands'
career path." The position of civil servants' wives in the
organization's hierarchy mirrors that of their husbands.

"But I think this reform era is the right time to change all
this," Saparinah told a seminar on women's rights at Pancasila
University in Depok, West Java.

Dharma Wanita, she added, only strengthened women's "secondary
status" in society as the organization positioned them as
subservient and with an "obligation" to follow their husbands.

Indicators that women were still accorded secondary status,
she said, showed that the country had yet to fully understand the
implication of its 1984 ratification of the United Nations
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women.

In Semarang, Central Java, activist Kusyuniati told a
discussion on violence against women that the "patriarchal
system in which men are the breadwinners and women as homemakers"
contributed to violence by husbands against wives.

"This entrusts a role on men to make them feel they have the
right to control their wives' lives," Kusyuniati was quoted by
Antara as saying.

The Indonesian Women's Coalition for Justice and Democracy is
scheduled to hold an Indonesian Women's Congress on Dec. 16 and
Dec. 17 in Yogyakarta.

Organizer Debra Yatim was quoted by Antara on Monday as saying
that some 400 participants from across the country would attend
the function, aimed to discuss the role of women in the country's
reform process. She said the congress was a follow-up to the
first women's congress of Dec. 22, 1928. The date is now
celebrated as Women's Day here.

The congress will be opened by GKR Hemas, the wife of the
Sultan of Yogyakarta, Hamengkubuwono X. (edt)