Women to fight for equality peacefully
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)