They Rise Up from Shambles
Guidance, advocacy and capacity building by women’s rights organizations across the country have encouraged women at the grassroots to rise up.
Four years ago, Bns, 54, of Depok, West Java, almost killed herself as she could not face the reality: her daughter, Md, who was still in high school, was sexually assaulted by her husband, who was also Md’s father.
“My daughter was depressed. She would cry and scream. She had not expected that she would experience something so vicious and cruel,” Bns said in an interview at the office of the Legal Aid Foundation of the Indonesian Women’s Association for Justice (LBH APIK) in Jakarta on Monday (22/4/2019).
In the name of justice for her daughter, Bns reported the sexual violence case to the police. Bns once brought Md to an integrated care center of Depok’s women and children empowerment agency, but there was nobody there. “I struggled with a burden of sadness. With my limited energy and finances, I almost gave up,” Bns said.
It was at that moment that she met with Siti Mazumah, then a staff member (and currently the director) of the Jakarta chapter of LBH APIK. A team from LBH APIK then accompanied Bns and Md throughout the legal process that ended with a seven-year imprisonment for Bns’ husband.
“I kept moving forward. It took a long time for my daughter to improve. This was all thanks to LBH APIK that tirelessly brought my daughter to therapy sessions with psychiatrists and psychologists,” said Bns, who now works as a LBH APIK volunteer. She has joined the campaign to push for a Sexual Violence Eradication Law.
“We have so many women like Bns who can get back up again and end up joining LBH APIK as volunteers,” Siti Mazumah said.
Becoming pioneers
Guidance by women’s rights organizations can not only empower victimized women but also create a path for strong female leadership in grassroots communities or marginalized groups. In time, these women became pioneers and agents of change in their communities.
In Kulambing Island, Pangkejene Islands, South Sulawesi, 40-year-old vegetable seller Indotang was able to change her life after participating in the women’s school organized by women’s rights advocacy group Institut KAPAL Perempuan and the South Sulawesi Community Empowerment Research Foundation.
Until five years ago, the elementary-school graduate with one child was a nobody. Her husband left her for another woman. Nowadays, she is known as a Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ambassador. Through selling her vegetables, she campaigns on the importance of realizing the SDGs so that nobody, especially women, will be left behind in development initiatives.
In December 2018, Indotang received an award from the Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry for being a pioneer in childhood marriage prevention. She won the award for her work in preventing child marriage in her village, including by educating local mothers to not give away their underage daughters for marriage.
Indotang was also invited to meet with President Joko Widodo along with other women working at the grassroots level. “If I did not participate in the women’s school, my life would not have changed. It would have been impossible for me to improve myself,” she said.
Indotang has broken the glass ceiling and become a successful representation of marginalized communities. Together with other women in the women’s school in her village, she makes herself heard in representing marginalized groups and she is involved in the decision-making process in her village and even in her regency.
Bns and Indotang are just two examples of women at the grassroots level who have risen up with help from women’s rights organizations. Today, many women’s rights organizations exist to help women at the grassroots level.