Indonesia
Increasing Access to Justice for Women, the Poor, and Those Living in Remote Areas: An Indonesian Case Study
"In 2010 the Indonesian Bureau of Statistics estimated that there are 65 million households in Indonesia, and almost 10 million of these - 14% - are headed by women.....Obtaining new identity or family cards that show a woman is the head of her household, requires the formalization of marriages and the issuance of legal divorce certificates.
Research conducted by PEKKA (an Indonesian civil society organization supporting women-headed households) has shown that over 50% of the marriages and 86% of the divorces of its members are not legally registered, as they are not brought before the Indonesian courts. It is for this reason that access to the religious courts for the poor, particularly for women, is critical to their ability to access broader public services."
Negotiating Gender Justice, Contesting Discrimination: Mapping Strategies that Intersect Culture, Women and Human Rights
This report documents diverse strategies adopted by community groups in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Nepal to negotiate women’s rights in the context of culture, while grounding the strategies in the specific political - historic local and national contexts. It looks at secular strategies along with the more recent responses to fundamentalism, that use cultural identity and religious/ cultural resources. The report provides a rich account initiatives that promote culture as relational, transforming, plural and accommodating of women’s rights, and in doing so, challenges dominant static and fundamentalist assertions of culture. This documentation assumes significance in relation to human rights with the creation of the new mandate of the Independent Expert in the field of Cultural Rights in 2009, in that it gives content to the term cultural diversity and participation and contribution to cultural life, both integral part of Cultural Rights.
Feminists on the Frontline: Case Studies of Resisting and Challenging Fundamentalisms
This collection of case studies is a testament to the women and men around the world who have stood up to reject the imposition of norms and values in the name of religion as well as to expose and challenge the privileged position given to religion in public policies. In 2008 AWID launched a call for proposals to document the strategies of women's rights activists confronting religious fundamentalisms. The final 18 case studies presented here are drawn from a wide range of religious and geographical contexts, and cover various fields of activism. We hope that this collection will inspire, inform and encourage discussion and debate. Please visit this page again for updates, as finalized case studies and a brief summary of each case study will be posted on a rolling basis. We will also soon be posting a paper that introduces the trends and themes that are threaded through the various case studies.
Proceedings of the CSW panel discussion on violence against women and girls justified in the name of culture
On March 3rd, a panel discussion on violence against women and girls justified in the name of culture was held by the Violence is Not our Culture (VNC) campaign during the 54th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).
Politicizing Islam: New Challenges for Indonesian Women
Politicizing Islam: New Challenges for Indonesian Women Sri Wiyanti Eddyono is a feminist lawyer, member of National Commission on Violence Against Women Indonesia, and Vice-President of Semarak Cerlang Nusa, Indonesia.
No Justice in Justifications: Violence Against Women in the Name of Culture, Religion and Tradition
A successful campaign to halt sharia laws in South Sulawesi
A successful campaign to halt sharia laws in South Sulawesi
Context
Although most Indonesians are Muslims, Indonesia is a secular, multi-cultural state, which claims to uphold human rights, including the rights of the women citizens. However, WEMC research in the district of Bulukumba, Makassar, S. Sulawesi, shows that religion is being politicised with Islamists seeking to subvert the secular state through regulations and legislations, on the basis of their interpretations of Islam.
Progressive Muslim Feminists in Indonesia from Pioneering to the Next Agendas
In this paper, I explore some progressive Islamic feminist organizations and their contributions to popularizing Islamic reform movements in Indonesia through their popular pioneering agendas. Some pioneers of progressive Muslim feminists, such as P3M, FK3, PUAN Amal Hayati and Rahima have killed two birds with one stone. They made an important impact on reducing stigma against Islamic reform ideas and feminism. Many Indonesian Muslims often consider Islamic reform movements and feminism a Western conspiracy to destroy Islam. Progressive Muslim feminist groups’ approaches to local Muslim scholars of pesantren (traditional Islamic boarding school) are vital in shifting these local leaders to be focal points of Islamic reform. With more popular issues of Islamic reform, such as reproductive rights and domestic violence, they create an efficient step to introduce Islamic reform movements to Muslims at the grassroot level.
Iran: End Executions by Stoning
From the report:
"Execution by stoning, a punishment prescribed in Iran’s Penal Code, is a particularly grotesque and horrific practice. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all circumstances and believes that stoning is specifically designed to increase the suffering of victims. Iranian law prescribes that the stones are deliberately chosen to be large enough to cause pain, but not so large as to kill the victim immediately. It is a punishment meted out specifically for adultery by married men and women, an act that is not even a crime in most countries of the world, and the majority of those sentenced to death by stoning are women."