Ngadri, Pontianak -- The Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) has called on all parties to protect the rights of women, rights that they have yet to gain.

The AJI made the call during an action commemorating International Women’s Day (IWD), which falls on March 8, at the Digulis Untan traffic circle in the West Kalimantan (Kalbar) city of Pontianak.

AJI Pontianak chairperson Dian Lestari said that according to the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan), in 2016 there were 259,150 cases of violence against women.

“In West Kalimantan alone, based on data from the Women’s Empowerment Agency and the Kalbar Family Planning Agency, the figures on violence, sexual, physical and verbal along with cases of abandonment, have risen dramatically between 2010 and 2016. In 2015 there were 21 cases and by the end of 2016 there were 30 cases that were being handled by shelters”, she said.

Dian said that the AJI Pontianak is calling for concrete actions to address these problems and that the government is obliged to provide protection and rehabilitation for victims of sexual and domestic violence. Furthermore, the government needs to increase public participation in handling these cases.

Meanwhile action coordinator Caroline Voermans said that the IWD commemoration had involved a number of women’s and student communities in Pontianak.

“During the action that began at 8am, in addition to speeches, a number of theatrical activities were also held by the arts community in Pontianak”, she said. (Ant)

[Slightly abridged translation by James Balowski for the Indoleft news service. The original title of the report was “AJI Kalbar Serukan Hak Perempuan”.]

Source: https://kalbar.deliknews.com/2017/03/08/aji-kalbar-serukan-hak-perempuan/