Rakhmatulloh – Women labour activists from the Joint Labour Secretariat (Sekber Buruh) Women’s Action Committee held a protest action in front of the Jakarta governor’s office at the Jakarta city hall calling on related institutions, central and regional governments to formulate policies that do not harm women.

The thousands of women workers also demanded assurances in relation the formal legal protections for women. “We are asking for concrete implementation of formal laws that regulate protection for women and the implementation of conventions on the abolition of all forms of discrimination against women”, said action coordinator Jumisi in front of the city hall on Friday March 8.

According to Jumisi, formal protection for women is already regulated in laws and regulations such as Law Number 7/1984 on the ratification of the UN Convention on the Eradication of all Forms of Discrimination, Law Number 39/1999 on Human Rights, Law Number 23/2002 on the Protection of Children, Law Number 23/2004 on the Eradication of Domestic Violence and Law Number 2/2008 requiring a 30 percent quota of legislative candidates in political parties.

The demonstrators however said that in reality the application of these regulations still overlap with one another and officials on the ground sometimes fail to implement these laws correctly.

“The application on the ground is often not the same as the actual laws. Security personnel [police] also often don’t understand the meaning of these laws”, she added.

The demonstrators plan to join up with other demonstrating workers at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Central Jakarta after finishing Friday prayers before continuing the action at the State Palace.

“Here today are thousands of women workers, later this afternoon we will join up with other workers at the Hotel Indonesia”, she said. (hyk)

[Buruh perempuan menuntut – Sindonews.com. Jumat, 8 Maret 2013. Slightly abridged translation by James Balowski.]