Indonesia needs woman's trade union: LBH

JAKARTA (JP): Women should organize their own trade union movement because existing labor organizations have neglected their demands for equal treatment, a woman lawyer says.

Rita Serena, of the Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) office in Jakarta, said yesterday that the existing unions have been concerned more about promoting the interests of male workers.

"There are many problems facing women workers, such as sexual harassment, wage discrimination and maternity leave, which are not covered by present labor organizations," Rita told a seminar on women's role in development yesterday.

She said that sexual discrimination in the workplace is still rampant although the law does not discriminate between men and women workers.

This is most obvious with companies that view wage discrimination as standard operating procedure, she said.

"Usually companies argue that a woman's salary is supplementary to her husband's. This is no longer true because many women are now the primary breadwinners in their families." she said.

Rita said that women now make up for about 46 percent of the Indonesian work-force and 32 percent of the industrial laborers.

Yesterday, the seminar reviewed the results of the Asia Pacific meeting of related non-governmental organizations held in Manila last year. It is due to wind up today.

Speakers on the first day of the seminar agreed that discrimination against women is still rampant in Indonesia, preventing them from giving their full potential to national development.

The speakers and the participants agreed that women could become agents of social change if given the opportunities to participate and make their own decisions.

The seminar was organized by the Communication Forum of NGO's and Social Organization on Women which presented papers from the Manila meeting as the basis for deliberation.

Zumrotin K. Susilo, chairperson of the Consumers Foundation (YLKI), said women could play an effective role in promoting greater environmental consciousness among the public.

The campaign to use more environmentally friendly products, for example, would be best if targeted at housewives because they are the ones who make decisions in buying consumer goods, she said.

On the subject of health, a speaker proposed that women should be given a greater say in making such choices as the kind of contraceptives to use and when to become pregnant.

There is now a tendency for health and population policies to simply meet the government's targets with little regard given to the needs or interests of the women.

"Family planning programs tend to make woman guinea pigs by encouraging long term family planning methods, such as injections and implants, without bothering to inform them about other alternatives," said Ninuk Widyantoro of the Institute of Applied Psychology.

Most of the government's policies were made from a male perspective. They only deal with one stage of life, namely when a woman has children and is expected to serve her husband and family, Ninuk said.

"It is important to focus not only on restricting births, but more on the health of women as a whole," she said.

Ninuk said that government policies should outline the male's responsibility in family planning, while at the same time, keeping a woman's reproduction rights at the core of family planning. (01)