Jakarta, The Indonesia Post – The chairman of the House of Representatives (DPR RI), Puan Maharani, sees the need to increase the involvement of women in the decision-making process in politics and public institutions, including in government and parliament.
“This role is needed because women can enrich the perspective of public policies so that these policies can benefit the entire community,” said Puan in her statement in Jakarta, Wednesday.
She said this in a special forum for women parliamentarians in Asia-Pacific entitled “Empowering Women to Overcome Future Crisis”.
The forum was held before the opening of The 30th Annual Congress of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum (APPF 30) in Thailand.
Puan said the involvement of women would lead to a more inclusive process in public policy decision-making.
According to her, society should not ignore the role of women for global and regional development, including in Asia-Pacific.
But she highlighted the challenges of women’s leadership in some parts of the world such as cultural and structural issues.
“Until now, a struggle is still needed in dealing with culturally rooted sentiments towards women and policies that are not gender responsive,” she said.
Puan alluded to the rules in Law Number 12 of 2014 concerning General Elections which urge 30 percent of the seats for women in the DPR RI.
She also revealed that there was an increase in the number of female DPR RI members, from only 17.3 percent to 21.39 percent during the 2019-2024 period.
According to her, Indonesia has more and more women leaders in various fields, and continues to strive to produce policies that favor women’s empowerment.
“Women have become part of the leadership of various public institutions in Indonesia. And they represent the progress of women in everyday life in Indonesia,” she said.
She believes that a “road-breaking” policy is needed to prepare women to fully face the crisis in the future.
According to her, the first and most important thing is to increase the capacity of women through education at every level.
“Not only basic education, but also high-quality education which is the right of every woman,” she said.
She assessed that another important factor was the steps in advancing a fair digital infrastructure and digital literacy for women to reduce the digital divide.
According to her, this is because digital technology has the potential to accelerate women’s empowerment.
“We must also provide more access to finance for women entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises and encourage women to be more involved in solving various global challenges, such as recovering from the pandemic, fighting global warming, and the peace process,” she said.
Puan said gender equality and women’s resilience are closely related to people’s prosperity, and parliament has an important role in realizing these goals. (mhn/bbs)
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