Gender in Global Agreements and National Arguments: The Indonesian Experience By Lynda Kurnia Wardhani December 2019 A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University @Copyright by Lynda Kurnia Wardhani 2019 Statement of Original Work I, Lynda Kurnia Wardhani, declare that this thesis is an original work. Signed:__________________ Date:________________________ Word Count: 97,841 ii Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude and sincere appreciation to my wonderful supervisory panel: Professor Ann Evans, Dr. Iwu Dwisetyani Utomo, and Professor Terrence H. Hull for their unwavering support, encouragement and guidance during my PhD journey. I am extremely grateful to Professor Peter McDonald and Dr. Edith Gray for their invaluable help so that I could complete my studies at the School of Demography, ANU School of Arts and Social Sciences. My special thanks also go to Dr. John Monfries for his excellent copy editing and flawless proofreading for my thesis. Last but not least, I would like to thank my beloved family and dearest friends for their abundant love and care. This thesis is dedicated to my parents as my source of strength and inspiration. iii Abstract As the largest Muslim majority nation and third largest democracy in the world, Indonesia has a remarkable history of activism by women. In earlier times, anti- colonial resistance movements included a number of prominent women leaders. Indonesia is the home of Kartini, a renowned international feminist, Megawati Sukarnoputri who was its first woman president, and Puan Maharani as the first female speaker of parliament. Moreover, the first administration of President Joko Widodo contained the largest number of female ministers holding strategic positions in Indonesian history. The ministry handling women’s affairs has gone through a breakthrough when it was named Ministry of Women’s Empowerment with Khofifah Indar Parawansa as its Minister. As a UN member country, Indonesia has ratified all major gender-related treaties, particularly the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and has publicly accepted the responsibility to put gender equality principles into national law and consistent practice. This thesis concentrates on the challenges of implementing gender-related treaties in Indonesia and seeks to discover why gender inequality remains prevalent despite the existing agreed and ratified covenants. Notwithstanding some notable achievements, real life is not always fair to Indonesian women. Indonesia’s maternal morbidity and mortality rates remain high, violence against women is common in both public and private spheres, access to reproductive health services is still limited, and women are underrepresented in key areas of political and public life. Moreover, discriminatory and gender-biased laws undermine women’s livelihoods. The attempt to analyse these contradictions focuses on international scholarly literature supplemented by primary research interviews undertaken in Indonesia. It aims to examine the ratification and adaptation process of treaties related to gender in Indonesia, to assess the approaches of the government and non-governmental sectors in implementing laws and regulations to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment, and to identify the obstacles and challenges to realising those goals. iv The interviews with government officials, representatives of international organisations, NGO staff, gender experts as well as religious and community leaders, suggest that Indonesia’s ratification of gender-related treaties is simply a political action aimed at maintaining the nation’s international reputation. Implementation is another story. Policy ratification doesn’t translate into program implementation. Moreover, critical barriers to gender equality and women’s empowerment arise from deep and strongly defended cultural stereotypes differentiating women and men. Cultural and traditional values as well as religious beliefs too often serve to entrench patriarchy. Indonesia has consistently failed to fulfil the expectations and obligations of the treaties in its domestic legal development due to the strength of patriarchy and the weakness of all reform efforts. Politicians have failed to implement the gender laws they have enacted. Instead they lean on existing social, cultural, and religious justifications to lock women into disadvantageous situations. Unlike other failures in policy implementation in the Indonesian government, efforts to realise gender equity are given less attention compared to other national efforts such as combatting corruption and improving infrastructure. There is no way to progress other than to unite and to continue efforts to eliminate gender inequality and discrimination through true implementation of gender-related treaties. The national government has a key role in rejecting the structure of patriarchy by strengthening oversight and monitoring of national legal instruments. This requires enormous change at all levels of the state system and cultural structure where gender inequality is entrenched. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Statement of Original Work …………………………………………………….............................. ii Acknowledgements …………………………………………………………….................................... iii Abstract ……………………………………………………………………….............................................. iv Table of Contents ………………………………………………………………..................................... vi List of Tables ……………………………………………………………………........................................ viii List of Pictures …………………………………………………………………....................................... ix Chapter 1: Introduction ……………………………………………………................................. 1 1.1. Background …………………………………………………………….................................... 1 1.2. Women in Indonesia ……………………………………………………............................ 13 1.2.1. History of Women’s Movement and Development .............. 13 1.2.1.1. Pre-Independence (before 1945) .......................... 13 1.2.1.2. Old Order Era under the Presidency of Soekarno (the 17 1950s) ........................................................................... 1.2.1.3. New Order Era under the Presidency of Soeharto (the 18 1970s) ........................................................................... 1.2.1.4. Reform Era under the Administration of Habibie, Wahid, Megawati and Yudhoyono (the 1990s) .... 22 1.2.2. Roles of Indonesian Women in the Current Economic and Political Development …………………………………………......................... 26 1.2.3. Gender Inequality in Indonesia …………………………………................ 29 1.3. Gender-Related Treaties and Issues of Its Implementation in 31 Indonesia ...................................................................................... 1.3.1. Gender-Related Treaties ……………………………………........................ 31 1.3.2. Issues of Implementing Gender-Related Treaties in 34 Indonesia ...................................................................................... 1.4. Justification of the Study, Research Objectives and Research Contribution ……………………………………………………………................................... 44 1.4.1. Justification of the Study ………………………………………...................... 44 1.4.2. Research Objectives ……………………………………………........................ 48 1.4.3. Research Contribution …………………………………………....................... 48 1.5. Overview of the Thesis ………………………………………………….......................... 50 Chapter 2: Gender Matters and Gender-Related Treaties ……………….. 52 2.1. From ‘Women in Development’ to ‘Gender and Development’ ..... 52 2.2. From Liberal Feminism to Postmodernist Feminism …………………...... 63 2.3. Brief History of United Nations’ Work on Gender ……………………......... 66 2.4. World Conferences on Women ………………………………………...................... 71 2.5. International Covenants on Gender ……………………………………................. 78 2.5.1. Western Scholars’ Perspective …………………………………................ 82 2.5.2. Role of Multilateral Organisations ……………………………….............. 90 2.5.2.1. The UN ................................................................. 90 2.5.2.2. The European Union ............................................ 91 2.5.2.3. The World Bank ................................................... 91 2.5.3. Views of Leading Scholars on Gender in Indonesia ……………. 94 Chapter 3: Research Methodology ……………………………………….................... 104 3.1. Research Procedure ……………………………………………………............................ 104 3.2. Data Collection …………………………………………………………................................ 107 vi Chapter 3: Research Methodology 3.3. Document Analysis …………………………………………………….............................. 107 3.4. In-Depth Interview ……………………………………………………................................ 109 3.5. Recording and Storage of Data ………………………………………...................... 117 3.6. Data Analysis …………………………………………………………................................... 119 3.7. Data Presentation ……………………………………………………….............................. 126 Chapter 4 : The Role of the Government in the Implementation of Gender-Related Treaties .................................................... 127 4.1. Indonesia’s Ratification of Gender-Related Treaties …………………...... 127 4.2. Indonesia’s Implementation of Gender-Related Treaties ………………. 142 4.2.1. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) ………………………...... 151 4.2.2. International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action ......……………………………...............