Women’s Network for Policy (JPUK)

There are a number of regulations that fundamentally change the way politics was carried out in Aceh alongside Indonesia’s democratization. It started with Law No. 44/1999 on Autonomy, which granted the province the right to organize and manage its own religious, cultural and educational affairs and granted the religious leaders a greater role in policy-making as recognition of Aceh’s uniqueness (Miller 2004, 333).² In 2001, the Special Region Status under the Autonomy law allows the Acehnese to directly elect their local leaders.

As soon as possible and not later than one year from the signing of this MOU, GOI (Government of Indonesia) agrees to and will facilitate the establishment of Aceh-based political parties that meet national criteria.

Paragraph 2 adds:

The people of Aceh will have the right to nominate candidates for the positions of all elected officials to contest the elections in Aceh in April 2006 and thereafter Acehnese are also granted the freedom to elect its governor, regents and mayors.

Paragraph 6 further provides:

Full participation of all Acehnese people in local and national election will be guaranteed in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia.

The MOU also provided that the local legislature would redraft the Law on the Governing of Aceh as written in Article 1 (4).

The legislature of Aceh will redraft the legal code for Aceh on the basis of the universal principles of human rights as provided for the United Nations International Covenants on civil and political rights, and on economy, social and cultural rights.

These legal developments provided Acehnese men and women with the opportunity to play much wider roles and to take part in local politics to reform the existing regulations, the sharia law and other future regulations. Activists, as the basic guidelines for their activism, have used the inclusion that the future law in Aceh should refer to the universal principles of human rights.

This background prompted women activists in Aceh who were part of Jaringan Perempuan untuk Kebijakan (JPUK, Women’s Policy Network) to advocate changes to some of the laws already enacted and to influence the drafting of the future laws. JPUK was created in 2004 by dozens of women activists and academics who shared concerns over the small number of women in the bureaucracy and local parliament.⁴ The small representation of women in parliament would give serious impact to the formulation of local regulations that lack gender interests. In the 1999 general election, no women were elected as members of local parliament, and in the 2004 general election only six women were elected. This means women constituted only 4.3 per cent of 69 members of local parliaments.⁵ This development led women activists from various local NGOs such as Syarifah Rahmatillah, the leader of local women’s NGO Mitra Sejati Perempuan Indonesia, Khairani Arifin from RPUK, and female academics from Syiah Kuala University and State Institute of Islamic Studies (IAIN) Ar-Raniry to organize into JPUK.⁶

When created in 2004, the founders of JPUK expected the network would provide Acehnese women (such as women activists, women academics, women judges and women religious leaders) greater opportunity to influence the formation of local regulations.

JPUK activists were mostly leaders of local women’s NGOs or other women’s mass-based organizations such as Aisyiyah, the women’s wing of the moderate Muslim organization Muhammadiyah or Fathayat, the women’s wing of Nahdhlatul Ulama. Most of the activists at JPUK were graduates of the Faculty of Law of Syiah Kuala University. There were also women activists with a background in Islamic studies, such as the female IAIN Ar-Raniry lecturer and activist Dr Nurjannah Ismail; a woman judge from the Mahkamah Syariat, Roosmawardani; and Soraya Devi, the head of IAIN Ar-Raniry’s Center for Women’s Studies.

To women activists at JPUK, the legal provisions mentioned above were political openings that allow women activists to ensure that women’s gender interests will be included in new laws. Apart from the points mandated in the MOU, Law No. 10/2004 on the Mechanism of Creating Legislation also supports women’s public participation, and Article 238 of the Law on Governing Aceh (LOGA) provides that the public has the right to give both oral and written suggestions within the process of deliberation of Qanun, and that public participation is guaranteed at every stage of drafting the Qanun. Chapter 25 of Qanun No. 3/2007 on the making of Qanun is also a basis for a public participation, as it provides that public participation can take the form of seminar, workshops, focus group discussions and public hearings (Novianan and Yudiansyah 2009).⁷

During the process of preparing the LOGA, which was finally enacted in 2006, JPUK proposed 26 themes related to women’s issues to be included in the new Law for Aceh. Of these, only six were finally included into the LOGA. They include: Article 75 on the requirement of local political parties to have 30 per cent of women’s participation; Article 231 on the role of the governor and deputy vice governor in gender mainstreaming efforts; Article 138 on women’s representation at the MPU; Article 154 (3) on women’s access and government credit for women’s business; and Article 215 (2) on the role of education in women’s empowerment and the role of government and Acehnese society protecting women’s rights (UNIFEM 2007).

JPUK also played a significant role in the process of drafting the Law on Governing Aceh (LOGA) or RUUPA (Rancangan Undang-Undang Peraturan Aceh), finally enacted as Law No. 11/2006. LOGA was promulgated as implementing the MOU between the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM, the Free Aceh Movement) and the Indonesian Government in Helsinki in 2005.⁸

Immediately after the 2006 Law on Governing Aceh was enacted, the local parliament planned to enact 59 Qanun during the period of 2007 to 2012 (UNIFEM 2007). Of these 59 Qanun, there were draft Qanun that occupied the attention of activists at JPUK. They included a Qanun on the making of Qanun; a Qanun Jinayah on criminal law; a Qanun on women’s empowerment; a Qanun on land ownership; a Qanun on the implementation of Islamic law; and a Qanun on local political parties and local elections (UNIFEM 2005). JPUK attempted to ensure that these Qanun would pay attention to women’s needs and would not discriminate against women or ignore women’s gender interests. They also wanted to ensure that any policy or Qanun produced by the local government led to gender equality and justice.⁹

There were two events than can be used to see JPUK’s achievements in lobbying and advocating for women’s interests to be included into the new law. The first was its attempt to lobby for changes to the draft Qanun on local leader elections, or PILKADA. JPUK demanded the local parliament revise the draft Qanun, saying that it discriminated against women. The draft provided in Article 1 that:

Everyone has the right to be elected in the election; everyone has the right to nominate oneself as a political party candidate to be nominated by a political party or join other candidates from a political party or to be nominated by a coalition of political parties (Article 41 Article 1).

JPUK criticized Article 1 of the draft Qanun, arguing that it did not clearly mention ‘women’ but used only the non-gender specific word setiap orang or ‘everyone’.

JPUK also demanded changes to Article 2, which, according to them set limits on how one can be elected. The article required that all candidates:

Have the ability to apply sharia law, can recite the Qur’an and are able to become Imam (leader) in the prayer and can deliver the sermon (khatib).

JPUK argued that this article intentionally limited women’s opportunities to participate in the election, since, when enacted, the Qanun would require political candidate in the election to be capable of being an Imam and a Khatib, In the local context of Aceh, women are strongly prohibited from acting as an Imam or leading a congregation in prayer or becoming a Khatib (one who delivers the sermon after the prayer). JPUK saw that if the Qanun was passed it therefore would preclude women from running as candidates. Women activists did agree, however, that both men and women candidates should be required to be able to recite the Qur’an. JPUK, therefore, demanded that the article read:

Be able to follow sharia law and can read from the Qur’an if they are a man or woman, and if they are man, be able to lead prayer.

JPUK was successful and its demand for changes to these drafts was accepted and incorporated into the Qanun, which was finally enacted as Qanun 7/2006 on the Election of Local Leaders. Since JPUK was concerned about the underrepresentation of women in the local parliament, it proposed two articles for inclusion in the LOGA:

Local political parties can be established and formed by at least fifty Indonesian citizens who are over twenty-one years old of age with at least 30% of them women who are domiciled in Aceh (paragraph 2).

The leadership of political parties should at least consist of 30% (thirty percent) of women (paragraph 5).

These two articles were finally enacted as part of Chapter XI, Article 75 on Local Political Parties of Article No.

Successful in influencing the formation of the LOGA, JPUK also played a crucial role in the process of drafting Qanun on women’s empowerment and the protection of children, which began in 2007. This Qanun was introduced by the Women’s Empowerment Bureau (BIRO Pemberdayaan Perempuan) of the province of Aceh and prepared by the Law Division within the Governor’s Office. In particular, JPUK argued for the need to include three issues that were not adequately addressed in the draft Qanun on women’s empowerment, domestic violence, and gender mainstreaming and gender empowerment. JPUK was supported by Oxfam in its attempts to support and promote the enactment of this Qanun. It organized a series of workshops involving activists, academics and government officials to discuss several points that it believed required the attention of policy-makers. To gain more insight, JPUK invited activists from Jakarta and used Law No. 12/2006 on Citizenship (Kewarganegaraan) and Law No. 13/2006 on the Protection of Witnesses and Victims as the basis for its recommendations. The draft Qanun was eventually amended on the basis on JPUK’s requests as regards women’s rights, education, women’s health, labour issues, women’s public participation, economy, social security, women’s empowerment and social participation. The Qanun on Women’s Empowerment was finally enacted as Qanun No. 9/2009 on Women’s Empowerment and Protection.

Besides advocating and promoting gender equality through political institutions as elaborated above, women’s activists from JPUK continued to work to develop gender awareness among the members of parliament, the bureaucracy, and within the religious community. Through its activism and advocacy, this women’s network had been able to significantly influence the making of public policy. Activists of JPUK argued that although individual women’s NGOs may have been working to advocate public policy-making, coalitions of local women’s NGOs, academics, women religious leaders and other members of civil society organizations were more likely to produce significant contributions to the betterment of Acehnese women.

The JPUK women’s network has also helped in forming new perceptions among Acehnese men and women regarding their rights under Islamic law. The work of JPUK can be seen from the fact that it had been successful in introducing the issues of women’s equality and women’s rights not only to the local government, the local legislature and bureaucracy, and religious leaders, but also to the people of Aceh. Gender equality, women’s rights and the need for a reinterpretation of Islam did, in fact, become a standard part of public discussions among Acehnese at that period of time. This demonstrated a positive trend for women and their movements within the context of women’s struggles for equality under Islamic law. This demonstrates that JPUK has the ability to set its own goals, agenda and choose its own forms of struggle, while continuing to develop networks with women’s movements in Jakarta and working with international organizations and foreign NGOs.