Women to fight for equality peacefully

JAKARTA (JP): Women activists from 13 Asia-Pacific countries ended their four-day workshop Saturday, agreeing to pursue a non- confrontational approach to end gender inequality.

They reaffirmed the need for further efforts to make policy- makers better aware of how to end commonplace discrimination against women.

Saparinah Sadli, chairperson of the Indonesian branch of the women's organization Convention Watch, said that every country should adopt a non-confrontational approach according to its policy in advocating gender equality for women.

In implementing the international convention against gender inequality, women's organizations should not take a confrontational approach that will disadvantage themselves, Saparinah said.

The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women was adopted by the United Nations' General Assembly in 1979. Indonesia ratified it in 1984.

"Most of the time, discrimination against women is difficult to understand by the policymakers, who are mostly men," Saparinah told some 50 participants of the workshop on Saturday.

"They (policymakers) don't consider discrimination against women as discrimination. Most of the time, they don't even realize that it is discrimination," she said.

She suggested that women's organizations should conduct studies or research about discrimination against women, Saparinah, a psychology professor at the University of Indonesia, said.

She insisted that it would be useless to come to policymakers with opinions and speculation, but every bit of information should be the result of serious research.

She called on women's organizations to advocate the elimination of discrimination against women at the lower level, such as women workers.

Aurora Javate De Bios, a member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, said the countries that have adopted the Convention should apply its articles by eliminating all forms of discrimination against women:

"The country which has already ratified the Convention should fully implement it. Women's organizations should control the implementation of the Convention in their respective countries."

In Indonesia, Saparinah said, the Convention has already been supported by law. "However, it's also necessary to issue a government regulation to fully implement the Convention and eliminate discriminatory practices in Indonesia," she said.

Discrimination against women is obvious in politics and at the workplace, she said. She added that the Convention is largely unimplemented and violators have not been punished.

The four-day workshop on Gender Equality in Asia and the Pacific through the Women's Convention: A Call to Action, which opened on Thursday, was organized by the Asia Pacific Women in Politics Network and the Convention Watch Group of the Women's Studies Graduate Program at the University of Indonesia.

The workshop was attended by more than 50 participants from 13 countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolian, Nepal, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. (31)