Law Number 7 of 2017 concerning General Elections has a 30% affirmation of women's candidacy but has not been able to produce a parliament that is representative of women, including in the city of Bandung. Of the 50 members of the Bandung City Regional People's Legislative Council from the 2019 election results, there were only 9 women (16%). People who care about women's issues hope that the 2024 elections can produce a parliament that is representative of women so they can produce policies that address gender inequality.
"In the process of registering prospective candidates for improvement, we must also continue to require and pay attention to the representation of 30 percent of women as a requirement in the nomination process," said the Chairperson of the General Election Commission (KPU) for Bandung City, Suharti, to Bandung on the phone (7/7).
KPU Bandung City has pocketed candidate data from a total of 18 political parties. A total of 885 candidates for legislative seats were registered. With each party registering as many as 50 prospective legislative candidates. Each party has seven to eight women. We must ensure that every political party has at least 30% representation in each electoral district.
Suhari informed me that the KPU for the City of Bandung had determined the number of voters for June 21, 2023. There were 1,872,381 people spread across 30 sub-districts and 151 urban villages. The number of voters is divided into 7,424 polling places (TPS), which have been recorded in the final voter list.
The city of Bandung is not yet friendly to women.
Referring to the Online Information System for the Protection of Women and Children (Simfoni-PPA), cases of violence against children and women in West Java in the last three years have continued to increase. It was recorded that in 2020 there were 1,186 cases, then in 2021 the cases rose to 1,766 cases, and again in 2022 to 2,001 cases. In these three years, the city of Bandung ranked first for three consecutive years.
The Chairperson of the SAPA Institute Foundation Governing Body, Sri Mulyati, revealed that until now, cases of sexual violence against women have continued to increase. Currently, the trend is that most cases occur among female migrant workers, online gender-based violence (KBGO), and domestic violence (KDRT). Even though the DPR has passed the Law on Violent Crimes (TPKS Law), its implementation in the field is still not optimal. In the city of Bandung, there are no derivative regulations to implement these regulations.
Sri revealed that, from a policy point of view, Bandung City is indeed a more underdeveloped area compared to Bandung Regency. In the district, Bandung already has a regional regulation on women's protection, a regional regulation on child protection, and a district head's regulation. Not only that, Bandung Regency also has standard operating procedures for handling cases of violence against women. Meanwhile, the city of Bandung only has a child protection regulation.
"If I look at the city of Bandung as the center of the provincial capital, from the aspect of its development, it is lagging far behind in terms of policy support for the protection of women and children who are victims of violence," she said.
In fact, the city of Bandung used to be a pioneer as the city that first formed the Integrated Handling Center for Handling Violence Against Women and Children (P2TP2A). However, from a regulatory standpoint, not much has been produced regarding the protection of women.
According to Sri, seeing the conditions on the ground, the city of Bandung is actually less productive in producing various innovative and conducive policies and programs for the protection of women. In the process, his party saw that the advocacy efforts made by service institutions in the city of Bandung to carry out advocacy work for the legislature were relatively minimal. No one then made efforts to work on legislative policy advocacy to push for various policy products related to the protection of women.
Based on data findings from Bandungbermoving.id, on the website page of the Bandung City DPRD policy list, namely the website page jdih.bandung.go.id, the City of Bandung does not have regulations related to the protection and empowerment of women. There is only one Regional Regulation 4/2019 concerning child protection. Until now, the city of Bandung has not yet had a specific regional regulation on the protection of women.
Bargaining Position of Political Women
Member of Commission D DPRD Bandung City Rini Ayu Susanti explained that the high level of violence against women in the city of Bandung is related to the political situation that has not involved many women. He mentioned the causative factors, among others, minimal women's education and issues of patriarchy in society, which perpetuate conditions of violence against women. In addition, he said that women are still a vulnerable group, both economically and culturally.
"So women are cared for by providing solutions and accommodating what complaints occur in society. The agency must be more proactive, especially towards women," he said when we met in the office of the Democratic Fraction of the Bandung City DPRD (12/7).
Commission D DPRD Kota Bandung takes care of the people's welfare sector, which includes 11 fields, one of which is women's empowerment. There are a total of 13 board members, including the chairman, three of whom are women.
Salmiah Rambe of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) faction is of the opinion that the prevalence of violence against women is related to the legal situation, which is not good enough. Salmiah revealed that her party had tried to push for an initiative for regional regulation (Perda) on women's empowerment. She and other council women are working to have this Perda. In mid-2023, this Perda is in the process of being formed at the Regional Regulation Formation Agency (Bapemperda).
"Thank God, the process was because of the initiative, so it was really the initiative of the mothers. How many people are there in the Bandung City DPRD? So we push, because this is also not easy. It means it's not easy; it takes a long time. But, Alhamdulillah, it has been included in Propem Perda in 2023," he said.
Better Parliament
A young politician from the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI), Indri Hafsari, believes that violence against women is a crucial issue in the city of Bandung. As one of the initiators of Stand with Her, she brings awareness to the community about women's empowerment. According to Indri, increasing women's empowerment is one of the solutions to address violence not only in the domestic sphere, such as domestic violence, but also in the public sphere, such as sexual violence in the workplace and education.
Along with the process of participating in the 2024 election, it goes down to the community to educate about gender and violence. According to him, gender inequality is related not only to the fact that there are still few female politicians in parliament but also to the people as voters who still don't care enough. During a visit to the community, Indri explained various forms of violence and how to report them and get protection.
"So I also gave education about gender equality. How is it that a mother is sometimes in the household too? Our society is also patriarchal, right? So they don't realize that actually women also have the right to be able to actualize themselves," she said.
Head of the Center for Politics and Democracy Studies at Padjadjaran University (Unpad), Ari Ganjar Herdiansyah, revealed that the 30% quota for women's candidacy can force political parties to pay attention to women. Unfortunately, this rule has not been optimally implemented.
"Yes, female cadres in the party are not aggressive enough to take advantage of it. It could also be that the party's cadres are not strong enough to encourage women to have the courage to take advantage of the quota," said Ari by telephone (7/7).
Ari revealed that many politicians still don't pay attention to the protection of women and children. except in some viral cases. Even in viral cases, it has not shown authentic concern from politicians.
As far as she observes, female politicians are more concerned about and more able to behave towards women's and children's issues. Several women from the Bandung City DPRD council pushed for an accelerated regulation to strengthen the position of women. Although the number is far less than the legislators, these women are much stronger in trying to protect women, especially from violence, sexual harassment, and others. If the 2024 election results result in more women being elected in the Bandung City DPRD, the Bandung City government will be more concerned about gender justice. []
EMI LA PALAU
Journalist of Bandungbergerak.id
This article is the result of the collaboration between electionhouse.org, Perludem, and Bandungbergerak.id, with the support of the Respect Program.
