Manda Firmansyah – The 2019 Jakarta Women’s March, which was held on Saturday April 27, began at the Sari Pan Pasific Hotel in Central Jakarta and ended with a rally at the Aspiration Park at the National Monument. The march around the city centre began at 8 am and made 10 demands.

This year’s Women’s March was organised in the context of the recent presidential and legislative elections and to coincide with Kartini Day – making the birthday of turn-of-the-century feminist hero Kartini – which falls on April 21.

Titi Anggraini, the executive director of the Association for Elections and Democracy election monitoring group (Perludem), said in a speech that she deplores the attitude of the political parties on how they rank women in legislative candidate (caleg) lists.

“Women are still just seen as political objects. The political parties are still not serious about ranking women in the caleg lists. Out of 40.8 percent of women caleg, most were ranked number 3. Meaning the political parties have yet to prioritise women”, said Anggraini.

According to Anggraini the requirement of a minimum 30 percent of women members in political parties as well as political party legislative candidates illustrates that women have a right to demand stronger representation.

“We are calling for 30 percent of women to be ranked number 1 in at least 30 percent of dapil [electoral districts]”, said Anggraini.

Anggraini also demanding that the political parties not just use women in order to fulfill the requirements to allow them to take part in elections.

“There must be an initiative to provide campaign funds for women. Political parties cannot be allowed to use women just to meet the requirements to become election participants. Women must become political subjects and political actors”, said Anggraini.

Among the 10 demands made at the 2019 Jakarta Women’s March was the demand to increase women’s political representation and that the political parties provide political education and education on citizenship from a gender perspective.

“So we are urging the political parties to make policies that better side with women. We are pushing for funding incentives for the political education for women”, said Anggraini.

Other demands meanwhile covered calls for the ratification of the Draft Law on the Elimination of Sexual Violence (RUU PKS), the abolition of discriminative laws and regulations and ensuring the implementation of the village and fishing laws to accommodate the needs of women in a way which is inclusive, participatory and takes the environment into account.

In addition to this, they also want assurances that the implementation of the migrant worker protection law sides with women migrant workers and the elimination of human trafficking and exploitation.

Not only this, the other demands were to investigate all forms of human rights violations and a legal system which upholds justice for women. The other demands related to public transportation, healthcare and education that is friendly to women, children and marginal groups.

[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was “Women’s March Jakarta 2019 suarakan 10 tuntutan”.]

Source: https://www.alinea.id/nasional/women-s-march-jakarta-2019-suarakan-10-tuntutan-b1XeC9jxU