Eva Kusuma Sundari
Member of the Indonesian house of
representative.
_____________________________________________________
Abstract
Women’s representation in the parliament is
ruled by law to 30 percent out of the number of legislators. The 30 percent
gender quota is still considered ineffective in voicing out the problems and
needs of women and other marginalized groups. One of the root causes of the
ineffectiveness is the domination of patriarchal values and norms over women in
which stands that men are better in handling political issues rather than
women. This domination of patriarchal values can be traced back to political
parties, through their commitment in giving or not giving proper and right
political education, and equal opportunity to both men and women to assume
position in the political institutions, which so far is still in disadvantage
to women. Women organizations and activists have to act together to encourage
political parties to take priority on women candidacy initiative.
_____________________________________________________
Introduction
The involvement and role of women in politics elsewhere is a
contradictory situation. Indonesia, with a population around 237 million and half
of them women, has women represented in the governmental bodies authorized to
decision making less than the quota mandated by the laws. Women representation
to the house of the parliament 2009-2014 is 18.03 percent or 101 out of 650
members of parliament. Indeed, the number of women in parliament has increased
since the election in 1955 but considering the political openness that
democracy brings, this number of the representation is still considered low. This
situation reflects the problems of women participation in politics.
The act number 10/2008 that issued just prior to the process of
selection of candidate for the 2009 legislative election mandates 30 percent
quota for women in the parliament, elected through the general election. This
act have bound all political parties to field women as candidates on at least
30 percent of their candidate list based on zipper and numbering list system. With
quota and candidacy scheme as ruled in the act 10/2008, at least 30 percent of
women candidate listed by political parties would have been elected to the
parliament. The quota translated into zipper and numbering list should have
ensured the fulfillment of 30 percent of women in the parliament as the
representative of the people. But in practice, not all of the political parties
implemented this quota based on zipper and numbering list system. In contrast,
political parties decided to base on internal majority vote. Worse than that,
the decision of most of the political parties to base on internal majority
votes was further strengthened and legitimized by Supreme Constitutional Court
(Mahkamah Konstitusi/MK) with the decision upon the judicial review dated 23
December 2008 that repealed the article of 214 of the act number 10/2008. The
decision of MK that repealed the quota translated into zipper and numbering
list system as ruled in the act 10/2008 has negated the affirmative program to
increase the number of the women representation in parliament.
As a result, the number of women legislators in the house of representative
2009-2014 is less than 30 percent. These
women legislators are mostly sitting on the parliamentary committees dealing
with less strategic issues such as education, health, and women empowerment.
The ensue question then, and this one has been repeatedly asked, is how the
performance or capacity of this 18.03 percent of women legislators in the
parliament? Do they have power and capacity to deliver a social transformation
to the Indonesian society through parliamentary works or do they just a symbol
of women representation? The hypothetical answer (and need to be proven
later): these women legislators have not
performed as agents for social transformation but as mere symbol of the
representation of women in parliament.
This article will explain and assess the performance of women
politician in the parliament by looking at their involvements and works in
relation to the basic functions of the legislative body: making legislations,
budgeting, and supervising the work of the executive. In order to properly
explain the problems of capacity and capability of women politician, this
article will also look at how political parties put their commitment in
implementing the affirmative policy in recruiting women as candidate and
provide them with relevant political education.
Women as Society Problem
Soekarno, quoting Hegel’s thesis on the structural progress of human
history, put women as important partners in the national struggle to achieve
national independent. Soekarno positioned women as an equal partner to men in
the context of people-state relations as well as the equal citizen in the
independent nation-state. “This (equal partnership of men and women) is a necessity
to unite the national power to struggle against neo-colonialism and imperialism,”
he said (Cindy Adam, 2011).
With this strategy, Soekarno hoped, that the movement of women will
not only take gender equality as the ultimate goal but more to attract women to
strive for more important goal of national struggle toward a national independent
and then building a national socialism. “It is not only men but women has also
to get ready to assume the risk in building a nation,” Soekarno said, quoting
Sarojini Naidu, a national activist of India
Soekarno himself, as describes in his book ‘Bung Karno: Penyambung
Lidah Rakyat (Bung Karno: Speaker of the People)’, has describes the role of
women on a story of the character of Sarinah, a Javanese woman house helper who
raised him. Bung Karno also wrote a book titled ‘Sarinah’ to describe and explain
the roles of women in the national struggle for independent Indonesia and the continued
roles he hope for Indonesian women to play after national independent is
achieved, which is to build a democratic and prosperous Indonesian society
based on the principle of Indonesian
socialism.
The concept of woman house helper in Javanese context is different from
the servant in the Western context. The woman house helper in Java is a part of
the family where she work in under the relationship of work based more on
caring and obligation rather than as a profession. Sarinah took care not only for
physical need of a little Soekarno but also tough him a proper behavior
and humanistic principles, as he said in
his autobiography as told to Cyndy Adams: “Sarinah tough me to love the people,
the masses and the layman.” (Cyndy Adams, 2011).
Three Stages of Women Movement
As explain in his book Sarinah, Soekarno put forward a thesis on the
three stages of the development of the movements for roles of women in society:
First stage, women is under the social condition to perfect their ‘womaness’.
(Note: Soekarno put quotation on the word womaness in his book). The ‘womaness’
here can be interpreted as a general sentiment in the society – the patriarchal
society – on the natural obligation of
the women such as cooking, sewing, beautification, doing social activities, raising
children, and other related domestic activities.
In the western society, Soekarno said, the first stage of women movement
was indicated by the emergence of a lot of women associations and clubs,
especially among the high-class, with the goal to prepare women to be more ready
to take their role as wife. These associations and clubs tough women the skills
to support their domestic roles mentioned above.
Although they have established associations and clubs, with all the
members women, but these women had not touched issues of women rights. They did not touch the existing
patriarchy and its consequences. They established schools for women but these
schools only preparing women to be wife. “Their schools are similar to
housekeeping skills course that we have today. They educate women only to be
marriageable for men from aristocratic class and the rich,” Soekarno wrote.
The proponent of the first stage of the role of women as describes
above are Madame de Maintenon in France
and A.H. Francke in Germany
The second stage, the women movement which demanded the emancipation of women and
men, especially in working and giving vote in national elections. This movement
was popularly known as women emancipation.
For Soekarno, the rise of this second stage of women movement is
connected to the development of capitalism. The changes in the mode of
production, especially shift from feudalism to capitalism, that changed people
perceptions toward women. Capitalism needs to attract women to work outside
domestic roles as workers for factories which were excessively built on that
era.
The proponents of the second stage of the women movement are Mercy
Otis Waren and Abigail Smith Adams in the US ;
Madame Roland, Olympe de Gauges, Rose Lacombe, and Theorigne de Mericourt in France
Mercy Otis Waren and Abigail Smith Adams, for example, during the process
of the writing of the US
In France France
All of these movements were mostly based on the struggle to achieve
‘equality of rights’ in all aspects of life, including in politics. The expressions
of their movement focused more to question the domination of men. Soekarno
considered these movements as bourgeois women movement. The reason he said was
that although the opportunities was then made open to women as the movement
demanded, the opportunities will only be possible for women from high and
middle class to take. Women from the lower class would not get benefit from
that opportunity.
According to Soekarno, as long as the political relations did not
change, women from the lower class will have difficulties to fully participate
in politics. Equality of rights was not enough. Women would still be supporting
element in society under the capitalistic social relation. Based on this
argument, there rise the third stage: a socialist women movement.
The third stage, women socialist movement, in Soekarno view, was a further
development of two previous movements. This was more perfect, meaningful and
basic compare to the others. Under this third stage, women movement were not
only struggle to emancipation and the abolishment of the patriarchal structure
of the society but went deeper to restructure the existing social system that still
tolerate the oppression of human being, women and men.
In exploring this stage of women movement, Soekarno refer to the book
of a socialist political thinker Frederich Engels, ‘The Origin of Family,
Private Ownership and the State’. Based on Engels thinking, Soekarno argued
that the oppression of women cannot be separated from the mode of production
and social relations. “The more important women position in the production
chain, the more prominent their position in the society,” he said.
Soekarno was also influenced by the thinking of Clara Zetkin and his
propagandic newsletter, Die Gleichheit. Soekarno argued that the women struggle for
freedom and socialists struggle for socialism were parallel. For example, both
women and men workers were oppressed under long work hour and low wages. The
goals of their movement were identical, which are replacing capitalism with
socialism as basic social and economic system for society.
Women in Parliament
In relation to the participation of women in the parliament,
Soekarno identified two types of participation: liberal feminist and socialist
movement. He described the differences: the
liberal feminist took the rights of representation of women in parliament as a
final goal, while the socialist movement took the representation of women in
the parliament as a political means to achieve a socialist society.
In Indonesian context, Soekarno positioned the women political
movement as part of the socialist movement to achieve Indonesian socialism.
“Without them (women socialist movement), we will never achieve victory.”
Soekarno said, quoting Lenin, emphasizing the role of women movement.
Gender Quota 30 percent and
Its Problems
Gender based quota for the legislative body is one of the legal
means to address the minor representation of women in politics. With higher
number of representation, it is hoped that the parliament will be more vocal
and active in voicing women’s basic need which are perceived to be neglected by
male legislators. These women basic needs include health related to
reproduction, education, security, protection for safety in work, freedom from
fear, freedom of expression and same opportunity in economic and political
arenas. These needs are perceived to be not properly advanced by men in the legislative
body, so that increasing the number of women in parliament through legal means
will ensure the fulfillment of these basic needs.
Representation of women in parliament or executive body can be
descriptive or substantive (Iwagana, 2008). Descriptive perspective measures the
representation of women from the physical presentation of women in state
bodies. Perspective substantive measures the representation of women from the
substantial issues and struggles to be delivered by that women representatives
in state bodies, as they have knowledge and experience different from men.
In addition to these two perspectives, there is third perspective
which takes the representation of women as the present of personnel
transformation, from self to influence politically changes in world system and
view.
In Indonesia
The argument for this gender based quota is clear, that is a structural
effort to increase the representation of women in the parliament in order to
advocate for better condition of life of women and other marginal groups. There
are also other issue of basic needs which also to be addressed by more women as
legislators. Indeed, there is a question to answer. Does the increase in number
of women in the parliament indicate that women are already empowered so that
they can contribute to the expected transformation?
On the correlation of number of the representation of women in parliament
and its quality, Dahlerup (2008) argued that the quota will not directly make a
better quality of women in politics as long as political parties do not abide
to the rule and do not get sanctions for their negligence to abide to the regulation.
If these requirements were not met, quota will only stand as a symbol, not the
goal of the efforts to bring more women to the representative bodies.
In future, all structural and cultural obstacles which hampered
women representation should be cleared. The affirmative action is still needed
to raise the number of women in parliament (Sandra Amalia, 2010).
Gender Mainstreaming in
Parliament
Efforts to keep gender mainstreaming in parliament in order to
ensure the present of women in state bodies – including the parliament – does
not run well due to several factors. Women in parliament were faced to several
complex factors which hampered them to perform well in the process of making
laws, budgeting and supervising government work. Most of these are cultural and
ideological obstacles which arise from the gender ideology constructed by social-cultural
pattern of relationship between men and women. This long-rooted pattern of
gender relations constructed women to be less assertive and less confidence to
express their view to public. Women are still having a perception about
politics as ‘dirty’ business that only men are better to involve in.
Not all women are aware about gender justice. As long as they do not
understand critically the social-cultural construction that harm women, it will
be difficult for them to have consideration on gender justice when they involve
in making decision. To think critical is important for women legislators.
Without this quality, women legislators will never become a critical partners
for their men colleague in the parliament. This technical problem of quality of women legislators can be addressed
by political education that include knowledge on politics, political
environment and gender awareness.
There are three functions of the house of representative: law
making, budgeting, and monitoring the work of government. Gender perspective is
still absent from women legislator during the implementation of these functions.
Besides, not all of women in parliament are having the same perspectives and awareness
to gender issue. These makes the translation of these three functions in the house
of representative bias on gender to the disadvantage of women, as the
subsequent description will show.
Law making
Laws passed by the house of representative have not yet represented
gender justice for women. Some of the acts are even unsupportive to women. Once
again, this situation exist because law makers do not have enough perspective
and knowledge on gender so the laws they passed are still are far from the
reality of women problem. The ministry of Law and Human rights and UNDP (2007)
noted that at least 20 acts passed by the house of representative are
unsupportive to women.
Some of these laws can be mentioned here, among others: 1. The
Pornographic Act, which does not give protection for women and children from
sexual exploitation, but rather put them in weak position concerning sexual
related crimes; 2. The Act 1/1974 on Marriage, which contains a lot of articles
bias to and disadvantages for women; 3. The Act on Placement and Protection of
the Indonesian Migrant Worker (Penempatan dan Perlindungan Tenaga Kerja
Indonesia/PPTKI), which burdened to a lot of business interest but is weak in
giving protection the migrant workers,
mostly women. The PPTKI act will be discussed further below.
Problems of the Indonesian migrant workers are complex but are also
ironical. Indonesia migrant workers – popularly known as TKI – have contributed
income in foreign currency (devisa) in great amount for Indonesia, second only
to national income from oil and gas sector, but the government does not give
protection to them. Most of these workers – about 80 percent – are women. Some
of them suffered tortures (physically and mentally), injustices, material
losses, unpleasant work conditions, and even death in foreign countries where
they work. The government is not only failed to protect them but even give them
– through bureaucracy which should taking care of them – other burdens with
illegal fees and treatments forced upon them. This government failure to
protect migrant workers is the root cause of all of the problems of the
Indonesian migrant workers.
To address the problems, Indonesia
There are at least three categories of problems related to the act
39/2004: 1. On the duty and authority of the government upon the placement of
migrant workers; 2. On the documentation and fees paid by migrant workers; and
3. On the general protection for migrant workers.
Article 5 section 1 of the act states that the government (ministry
of manpower and transmigration) is acting as regulator, supervisor, executor
and protector of migrant workers in foreign countries. The government,
according to this act, assumed too many and conflicting roles that may lead to
inefficiency and power abuse. This kind of ruling indicates that the government
still want to keep interest on the placement and other business on migrant
workers by refusing to decentralize and share its authorities with local
government. The ministry wants to retain its monopolistic power over the PJTKI
– agents to recruit and distribute migrant workers – up to its local branch offices.
This policy is not only irrelevant to the policy of decentralization but also
unable local government to monitor the operation of the PJTKI in their
administrative areas. This will further hamper local government to take part in
protecting migrant workers recruited from their administrative areas when they
have problems in foreign countries where they are placed.
Fees and payment related to the placement of migrant workers go to
the central government as national income, without any portion go to local
government. With these administrative fees and legal payment by migrant workers
and agents, the national government is bound to have an obligation to protect
migrant workers. While the government fails to perform the role, the local
government will not be able to help because they do not have legal bases to
take part in the problems of migrant workers. Central government should not
have to directly working with local PJTKI as this kind of scheme is also raised
suspicion that government bureaucracy may take illegal benefit from business on
the migrant workers.
Migrant workers have also to born additional burden both on the
process for departure and the process of their arrival to Indonesia
Legally, there are only three components of fees should be paid by
the workers: documents of personal identity, health clearance, and
work-training certificate. In fact, migrant workers have to pay for all of
documents that they need to get, outside three documents mentioned above. Some
document that are forced to the worker to acquired are not relevant but the
workers still have to make and pay for. This illegal scheme which burdened migrant
worker are made as if legal.
Migrant workers are also subject to corruption by the bureaucrats in
charge of them when they arrive back to Indonesia
The most tragic issue to our concern that the government fails to
provide for migrant workers is a security protection. Migrant workers –
especially women – are very vulnerable to exploitation and violence. The act
39/2004 does mention the rights of migrant workers to get protection, same
opportunity and gender justice but how these rights should be served by the
government are not specified to actions. The forms of violence mentioned in the
act are also lack of definition. Without a proper definition, the criminal act
over violence will not be able to prosecute. This leads to facts that a lot of
cases of injustices against the migrant worker should be resolved through
mediations, they did not proceed to court. Some of the cases harm the workers
and go against our human feeling. It is the state, through acts and government
policies which can give protection, security, and justice for migrant workers
who work in foreign countries and often called as ‘pahlawan devisa’ or heroes
who bring in foreign income.
Budgeting
In term of budgeting, women legislators still unable to influence
the house of representative for gender sensitive budget. Most of the budget for
gender programs are allocated through ministerial departments and distributes
into three programs for allocation: budget for empowering and improving quality
of life of women, budget for improving capacity and equal work opportunity for
women, and general budget for gender mainstreaming. Budget allocations proposed
by the government in budget proposal submitted to the parliament for these
programs are small, and it makes no room for any parliamentary effort to
increase the allocation. Women legislators should pay more attention to this
and working together to find ways to overcome these problems, and advocate
budget based on gender justice.
Monitoring
The house of representative monitor the work of the executive in
implementing acts, national budget, and other government policies. In term of
implementing acts, the legislators take note that laws and regulations are
relevant to the condition in society, so that their implementation serve to
benefit the people. The legislators are also monitoring the government programs
and implementation of the programs. These are important and strategic functions
of the legislators – especially women legislators – to advocate gender
perspectives in government work. But in reality, women legislators are still
unable to utilizing these functions to advance women empowering programs.
Recruitment of Potential Women
Candidates by Political Parties
The end of the new order in Indonesia in 1998 opened the new
opportunities for people to participate in politics for individual expression, securing
individual rights and to take part in the struggle for noble causes such as
justice which they did not able to take under the authoritarian regime. Soon
after the new order regime collapse, people were on revolt against the
immediate government which they perceive were remnants of the new order.
In plantation, farmers staged revolt against the state owned plantations
demanded back their lands confiscated by the new order regime (Pinky
Chrisantini, 2007). Non-government organizations and mass associations
mushroomed in local level to voice their sentiments and demands. People and
media enjoyed freedom. Human rights were given wider attention.
A lot of women organizations that have been long inactive under the
new order, except Dharma Wanita and PKK – two women associations supported by
the new order, paved the way to have their voices heard. At the same time, political
parties established new women division, such as Departemen Pemberdayaan Wanita
(in Indonesian Democratic Party Struggle/PDI Perjuangan), Kesatuan Wanita
Partai Golkar (in party Golkar), Wanita Amanat Nasional (under party PAN), and
Perempuan Partai Kebangkitab Bangsa (Amlin, 2010).
Despite the resurrection of people awareness on women roles in
politics as describe above, the problems of the recruitment of women candidate
by political parties remains as crucial issues. The questions frequently ask are
whether the involvement of the women into politics through political parties
are genuine aspirations of women or that women are just instrument of political
machinery of political parties? Do women activists join the political parties
with a strong commitment to social transformation for the betterment of the
nation?
During discussion on quota and decentralization in 2008 held by
Women Research Institute (Delphi Panel), the panelists agreed that reform on
political parties was one of the strategic ways to increase participation of
women in politics. Reforms were needed to make political parties to have strong
commitment to field women candidate over men and to work to ensure they were
elected to be members of the parliament. Political education in political
parties were also still weak and this make most of political parties failed to
fill 30 percent quota for women candidate. There were several reasons to
contribute to these. First, most of the functionaries of political parties are
men. Second, political parties recruit women candidate more as a strategy to attract more
women voters rather than make these women candidate elected. Third, political
educations which are provided for women by political parties are still
inadequate to upgrade the capability of women members.
There are several types of
recruitments of women by political parties in Indonesia
In the case of PKS for example, the basis for recruitment of women
candidates that they employed are non-family member. Wife and other women with family relations
with the legislators of PKS are not allowed to be fielded as candidate. Other
political parties, such as PBR in the 2004 election, have problems to attract
women candidates from the young. The
root of all of these difficulties for parties to recruit women candidates are
the general notion that politics is not an area where women fit into. Politics
is also perceived, in this context, as people looking for carrier and not for
solving the problems in societies.
Conclusion
The struggle of women to be member of the parliament and to lead social
transformation from that position is still hard and far away to realize. There
are only few women able to get seat in the parliament as representative of the
people, and from this few, not all of them can and able to assume properly the
roles to advocate the interest of women and other marginal groups. Today, with
the existence of the liberal democratic political system in Indonesia, all
women has the same right to participate in politics as well as the rights to
have political education to help them to public service as the representatives
of the people in the parliament.
Laws and other legislative products of the house of representative
are still far from serving the justice of gender. There are still many of the
obstacles for women legislators to advance the need of women and other marginal
groups through the parliament. These women legislators have possessed a good
understanding on the need to improve the capacity of working in the parliament,
but they need an extra and endless spirit to take the real roles to assert justice
of gender. The most powerful enemy to face is the still dominant values of
‘patriarchy’ in the society. This patriarchal values works slowly through our conscious
in daily life which convert women to believe that the values are natural and
normal.
Indeed, there are obstacles in the struggle to end the injustice
toward women, including contestation in politics. Actually, in political arena,
political parties play important roles to bring political justice for women. The
roles of the political parties can be distributed into two actions. First, political
parties have to assume the responsibility to share the opportunity for women to
participate actively in politics. Second, political parties, at the same time,
have to improve the capability of their women candidates should they elected to
work in the parliament.
So far, only few political parties that share this vision and are acting
on the same mission to empower women in politics. Confronting to this
situation, women organizations and women activists, while working together to
support the gender mainstreaming program, should also act on the same platform
to encourage political parties to take priority on the important of putting
more women as legislators and keep this issue during the process of candidate
selection for the coming election.
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