As part of its commitment to encourage women's political participation, IDEA will hold a 'Declaration of the Importance of Promoting and Supporting Women Political Leaders' activity entitled 'Wong Wedok Dudu Mung Konco Wingking', Saturday, April 3, 2021. The declaration involved 100 people from women's groups, young women in villages, and female cadres from all districts and cities in the province of DIY. This activity was carried out in order to strengthen women's awareness to become prospective leaders as well as have the ability to carry out public awareness movements on the issue of women's leadership.
In addition, through the declaration of women's political leadership, IDEA wants to provide an example that in the Province of DIY there is women's political leadership that is able to bring about change in villages that are more democratic, pay attention to the welfare of vulnerable groups, and involve youth at the village level with the hope that they can become agents of change to increase awareness of the importance of women political leaders.
IDEA involved female village leaders representing all regencies and cities in the Special Region of Yogyakarta to convey some of their visions, commitments and journeys as driving forces in their respective villages. The female leaders include Edy Supriyanti as the village head of Ppembekan, Playen, Gunungkidul, then Titik Istiyawatun as the village head of Sriharjo, Imogiri, Bantul, then Novita Savitri as the deputy chair of BPKal Condongcatur, Depok, Sleman, and Budi Sapti Mulyani as the village head of Ketaon, Gerbosari, Samigaluh, Kulon Progo, and Sumartini as the chair of KUBE Cokrodiningratan, Jetis, Yogyakarta City.
There are several important points that are the title of the declaration, these points include that women can also be part of policy makers in villages/sub-districts. Then the importance of women becoming policy makers in villages. As well as innovations by female leaders that have an impact on change to be enjoyed by residents in the village. In this declaration, women's groups also call for fellow women to support women's political leadership.
At the end of the session, the event was closed with the reading of the declaration statement delivered by a participant named Wiwin Indriyani, a woman from the Baciro Yogyakarta group. The statement delivered was as follows
The declaration activity is part of the Women Democracy Network program run by IDEA in the province of DIY. The program is run by IDEA because it is based on data from the General Election Commission which determined 2,829 legislative candidates at the provincial and district/city levels for the 2019 legislative elections, of which there were 1,239 female candidates. However, of that number, only 9 female candidates were elected as legislative members in the province of DIY. Meanwhile, there are 46 male legislative members. This means that the representation of female legislative members is only around 16%, far from the 30% female quota.
The election of female leaders also occurs in the Village/Sub-district. In Kulon Progo for example, the percentage of female sub-district heads and village heads is around 10%, far from the affirmation of the female quota set at 30%.
The number of Regents/Mayors in the Special Region of Yogyakarta is only 1 out of a total of 5 Regents/Mayors. In the simultaneous regional head elections held in December 2020, there were only 3 women running as regents and deputy regents out of 18 candidates who will advance in the regional head election competition. The number of female BPD members is also still minimal, in Sleman Regency, for example, out of a total of 904 BPD members, only 22 are women or around 2%. In the village head elections in Bantul Regency in September 2020, out of 75 candidates, only 2 were women. This indicates the importance of increasing women's access and participation to be further involved in the process of producing models of women's political leadership that support the interests of women and vulnerable groups.
This is in line with the 2019 DIY gender and child profile data in the field of politics and decision-making which shows that women's participation in public policy decision-making is still low. The number of women sitting in executive, legislative and judicial institutions is still far behind men who hold important positions in politics and decision-making. The decline in IDG was contributed by a decline in the number of women in the executive where in 2018 there was a decline in the number of female sub-district heads from 10 to 8. Likewise, the number of village heads/sub-district heads in 2018 showed a decline from 45 female village heads to 42.
On the other hand, there are still many questions that arise whether the presence of female political leaders is able to represent women's interests?. Is it able to accommodate their needs, experiences and aspirations or the needs of vulnerable groups?. In fact, women's political participation is currently increasingly needed in efforts to integrate gender needs in various public policies and can produce legal products. These legal products produce gender sensitivity that has been neglected so far, thus inhibiting women's participation in various sectors.
Contact person: Ahmad Hedar – Project Manager (082225434796)
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