Indonesia has one of the highest rates of income inequality in Southeast Asia, according to the World Bank. Credit: Sandra Siagian/IPS

By Sandra Siagian
JAKARTA, May 13 2015 (IPS)

Every afternoon, Wahyu sets up his wooden food cart by the side of a busy road in Central Jakarta to sell sweet buns, known as ‘bakpao’, to people passing by. In a good month, the street vendor can make around 800,000 rupiah, which amounts to roughly 62 dollars.

Across the road from where Wahyu hawks his wares stands one of the many malls that dot Indonesia’s capital city, home to 9.6 million people, filled with high-end designer labels like Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Gucci.

"We [...] need the government to take a welfare approach to make sure that our low-income workers are protected." -- Said Iqbal, chairman of the Indonesian Trade Union Confederation (KSPI)
Despite Wahyu’s position literally opposite the entrance to the plaza, it’s unlikely he will ever step foot inside it, let alone shop there.

Indonesia’s wealth gap has widened over the years, with the nation’s Central Statistics Agency (BPS) revealing that the country’s Gini index – a ratio measuring wealth distribution on a scale of 0-1 – increased from approximately 0.36 in 2012 to 0.41 in 2014.

While some are making their fortunes in this Southeast Asian nation of 250 million people, scores are languishing in destitution.

An estimated 28 million people live below the poverty line, and half of all households are grouped at or below the poverty line, set at 292,951 rupiah (24.4 dollars) per month, according to the World Bank.

When Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo came into office last October, he pledged to work towards minimising the country’s income inequality.

At the same time, the president, who is fondly known as Jokowi, emphasised that he was keen to boost the investment appeal of the world’s fourth most populous country, a plan that has some trade unions on edge, fearing the impact of unchecked foreign investment on a vulnerable workforce.

“We agree with the government’s plan to invite investors as we need investment for economic growth in the country. We support him,” explains Said Iqbal, the chairman of the Indonesian Trade Union Confederation (KSPI).

“But we also need the government to take a welfare approach to make sure that our low-income workers are protected,” he tells IPS.

The nation’s average minimum wage is around 1.5 million rupiah, the equivalent of 115 dollars, according to data from BPS.

Each province or district sets their own minimum wage in line with the amount needed for workers to achieve a decent standard of living. The current rate for the capital city is 2.7 million rupiah per month, about 206 dollars, a figure that labour unions argue is not in line with the rising costs of basic needs.

“Thailand has a minimum wage equivalent to 3.2 million rupiah (244 dollars), Philippines at an equivalent of 3.6 million rupiah (274 dollars) and in Malaysia it’s more than three million rupiah (228 dollars),” explains Iqbal, who joined thousands of workers in Jakarta this past May Day to demand higher wages.

“We [labour unions] have met with Jokowi and we welcome his vision. But we haven’t seen any action; we need him to implement policies. We need to see wages increased to reflect the increase in oil prices and consumer goods.”

As pointed out in a January 2015 report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), one in three regular employees – or 33.6 percent of the total workforce engaged in full-time work – receives a low wage.

While low wages in some emerging economies can symbolise a workforce about to move into a higher income bracket, “for many Indonesian workers low-wage employment tends to be the norm, rather than a springboard,” the ILO found.

The report also found that 45.9 percent of regular wage employees were “receiving wages below the lowest wage that is permissible by law in August 2014.”

Sharan Burrow, the general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), tells IPS that Indonesia is not doing enough to tackle the country’s rising inequality or its growing informal economy – two things she says pose economic and social risks.

“The unions here have fought the low-wage culture for many years […]; it is still not a wage on which people can live with dignity against rising costs for basic needs,” Burrow, who was in Jakarta for the May Day celebrations, explains.

“Likewise, social protection is still not deep enough and is not universal.”

According to the World Bank, employment growth has been slower than population growth, while “public services remain inadequate by middle-income standards.”

Health and infrastructure indicators are also poor, and the country is a ways off from achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the United Nation’s poverty-reduction blueprint that is set to expire at the end of the year.

For instance, the country continues to be plagued by high infant and maternal mortality ratios, with 228 infant deaths and 190 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births.

Meanwhile, only 68 percent of the population has access to improved sanitation facilities, far short of the MDG target of 86 percent.

With 153.2 million people – or 62 percent of the total population – living in rural areas without easy access to medical, educational and financial institutions, experts say there is an urgent need for the country to devise schemes that will allow a more equitable sharing of wealth among its people.

While some analysts say Indonesia’s low wages act as a magnet for investment, business insiders disagree.

“The business community is aware that low wages are no longer the attraction they used to be,” says Keith Loveard, a senior risk analyst with Concord Consulting in Jakarta, adding that increased inequity over the past decade has seen the bottom 50 percent of the population make very few gains.

The government could reverse this tide by tackling bureaucratic bottlenecks in various sectors.

According to Loveard, “Indonesia’s logistics costs make up more than a quarter of production costs and the only way companies can deal with that is to squeeze workers. So realistically, until you lower logistics costs with better infrastructure and cut the red tape, it’s very difficult to do business in areas such as manufacturing that create lots of jobs.”

Indonesia’s manufacturing sector is the second largest contributor, after the service sector, to regular wage employment and a strong factor for economic and employment growth in the country, according to the ILO.

Organisations like the World Bank, which estimate that Indonesia has one of the fastest rising rates of income inequality in the Southeast Asian region, say that unless the country adopts social protection programmes for the poorest people, and invests in infrastructure that will enhance their productive capacity, Indonesia will find itself losing social, political and political cohesion in the years to come.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla and UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin discussed how Indonesia could harness its demographic dividend on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum on East Asia in Jakarta on Apr. 20. Credit: Courtesy of UNFPA Indonesia.

By Sandra Siagian
JAKARATA, May 2 2015 (IPS)

In a populous archipelago nation like Indonesia, where 250 million live spread across some 17,500 islands, speaking over 300 languages, the question of development is a tricky one.

A lower-middle-income country with a poverty rate of 11.4 percent – with a further 65 million people living just below the poverty line – the government is forced to make tough choices between where to invest limited funds: education or health, job creation or infrastructure development?

A demographic dividend arises when a high ratio of working people relative to population size frees up resources for private and public investment in human and physical capital.
These issues are further complicated by the fact that over 62 percent of the population – about 153 million people – lives in rural areas, largely cut off from easy access to hospitals, schools and job markets outside of the agricultural sector. About 27 percent of this population, roughly 66.1 million people, are women of reproductive age.

In addition, Indonesia currently has the highest rate of working-age people that it has ever had, both in absolute numbers – with 157 million potential workers – and as a proportion of the total population – accounting for 66 percent of all Indonesians.

While this puts a huge strain on the government to provide jobs, it also offers the country a chance to reap the benefits of its demographic dividend, defined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as a period in which the rising number of working people relative to population size frees up resources for private and public investment in human and physical capital.

This, in turn, allows the country to achieve far higher rates of income per capita, thus boosting the national economy.

At the recently concluded World Economic Forum on East Asia, which ran from Apr. 19-21 in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, experts from around the world urged the country to capitalise on its demographic dividend by investing heavily in its own people.

Among the nearly 700 participants in the conference was the executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), former Nigerian Health Minister Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, who stressed throughout his three-day visit that “people need to be at the centre of development.”

While this may seem a simple recipe, it bears repeating in Indonesia, where half of the population falls into the ‘youth’ category (15-24 years), a demographic that also has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.

With Indonesia’s population set to increase by 19 percent, to about 293 million people by 2030, according to the UNFPA, the country would be well advised to heed the words of population experts.

In the midst of his whirlwind visit to Jakarta, Osotimehin sat down with IPS to discuss how Indonesia can harness the potential of its people, and to share some strategies on how the young democracy can optimise on changing population dynamics.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: Where is Indonesia in terms of its demographic dividend?

A: Indonesia needs to take advantage of its demographic window of opportunity, which is expected to peak between 2020 and 2030. I think that there is the consciousness in Indonesia that this [demographic dividend] is an important national planning process, which they must invest in.

I believe that Indonesia has both the analytics and the political commitment, but I believe that going forward, we will have to encourage Indonesia to investment [strategically] for the demographic dividend to succeed.

Q: What kinds of investments need to be made?

A: Investments in health, youth education and employment need to be scaled up considerably. I think that social systems need strengthening – we need to address the issue of early marriage and make sure that girls are allowed to go to school, stay in school and reach maturity. We want to make sure that girls and women can make choices for themselves going forward, that is a key point.

Every young person must be taught about themselves and their bodies, and every woman needs to have access to voluntary family planning and sexual reproductive health services so that they are empowered to make choices. Having comprehensive sexuality education would ensure that we could reduce things like HIV infections, sexually transmitted infections and teenage pregnancies.

I think that within the educational framework we also want a situation where the curriculum is diversified so that we can encourage vocational training and entrepreneurship training. We need to be able to inspire small and medium-sized enterprises, which usually form the basis of a thriving economy.

Q: Why is it particularly important for Indonesia to focus on young people?

A: It’s important for Indonesia to invest in young people for many reasons. It gives a sense of belonging [for] a young person and it ensures that they can participate in national development. Young people will be part of the demographic transition and fertility reduction needs to include them. So really, they have to be part of the process.

Once you realise the potential of young people and they enter employment they are then able to save and earn, which in turn will help the economy grow.

Q: Is Indonesia moving in the right direction?

I think Indonesia has always had some of the necessary policies in place; they just need to be revitalised. New investments and political leadership have to come into it.

In the past, Indonesia was the leader in family planning after they implemented a national family planning programme in the 1970s. But it fell off the radar after Indonesia’s democratic transition in the 2000s, when family planning services were decentralised.

I think this new government is committed to bringing it back and I hear from discussions with various government leaders that this is something that they are paying close attention to.

Indonesia should also consider working with the private sector to help create decent jobs. Making sure that everybody, from the youth to the elderly, has social protection that provides basic [services] will be most important.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Excerpt:

Indonesian President Joko Widodo during a rally on Election Day on Jul. 9, 2014, at Proklamasi Monument Park in Jakarta. Human rights groups have condemned the country’s seventh president for his “backwards” stance on capital punishment. Credit: Sandra Siagian/IPS

By Sandra Siagian
JAKARTA, Mar 26 2015 (IPS)

When Indonesia’s law and human rights minister visited one of the country’s prisons in December last year, he met a Nigerian convict on death row for drug trafficking, who performed songs for him before leaving him with a parting gift.

“He sang […] beautifully,” Yasonna Laoly, the human rights minister, tells IPS. “He first quoted from the Bible before he gave me a souvenir when I left – it was a painting, a beautiful one.”

“There are no statistics of a deterrent effect with the death penalty. Jokowi is using the death penalty […] to prove to his critics that he is firm." -- Haris Azhar, coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras)
A month ago, at one of the weekly Christian services held at his ministry in the capital, Jakarta, a pastor came up to the minister to plea for some prisoners facing the death penalty.

She brought up the Nigerian man Laoly had met last year, stressing that he had reformed, converted to Christianity and become a good person.

“She asked me, ‘Why can’t you help?’,” explains the minister, who has also received an album of songs from the Nigerian death row inmate.

“I told her that, psychologically, it bothers me, but I have to face the case,” Laoly tells IPS, adding that he “does not believe in capital punishment”.

“I spoke to the Attorney General [H.M. Prasetyo], who was with me when I visited him and he just replied: ‘This is the law of the country and we have a policy’.”

The government of this archipelago nation of 250 million people has a no-tolerance policy when it comes to drug trafficking and smuggling, and has no qualms about using the death penalty for such offenses.

Just after midnight on Jan. 18, six drug convicts were executed by firing squad, the first imposition of capital punishment since President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo took office last October.

Another 10 drug convicts – citizens of Australia, France, Brazil, the Philippines, Ghana, Nigeria and Indonesia – are slated to be executed next, following their transfer to the island prison of Nusakambangan.

Prior to Widodo’s presidential election victory last year, capital punishment in the archipelago had declined. Four people were executed in 2013 after a five-year hiatus and no capital sentences were carried out by the state in 2014.

Still, there are currently 138 people – one-third of them foreigners – on death row, primarily for drug-related offenses. The government claims its hard-line stance has to do with the growing drug menace in Indonesia – at present, 45 percent of drugs in Southeast Asia flow through this country, making it the largest drug market in the region.

Citing statistics from the country’s National Narcotics Board (BNN), Troels Vester, country manager of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) put the number of drug users at 5.6 million this year.

Government statistics further indicate that drug abuse kills off some 40 Indonesians every day, a figure hotly disputed by local rights groups.

A street food vendor walks past a sign, warning residents against taking drugs, outside of the Russian consulate in South Jakarta. Indonesia imposes harsh penalties, including capital punishment, for drug-related crimes. Credit: Sandra Siagian/IPS

Officials say that rampant drug use also fuels a demand for medical and health services, putting undue pressure on the government to expend public resources on treatment and counseling, HIV testing, and anti-retroviral therapy for those people living with HIV/AIDS.

But the United Nations says that the use of the death penalty will not necessary reduce Indonesia’s drug woes, and has urged the country to stopper the practice of capital punishment in line with international law.

Earlier this month some 40 human rights groups from around the world dispatched a letter to the Indonesian president, reminding him, “Executions are against Article 28(a) of the Indonesian Constitution, which guarantees everyone’s right to life.”

The letter further stated, “They are also in breach of Indonesia’s international legal obligations under Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which recognises every human being’s inherent right to life.”

Such efforts have so far failed to sway the president, or stay the country’s harsh hand of justice.

Ignoring international pressure

Widodo has also rejected political bids for clemency, including entreaties from foreign governments to spare the lives of their citizens; five of the six drug convicts executed in January were foreigners.

In January, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands personally requested Widodo to pardon Dutch national Ang Kiem Soe – convicted of being involved in a scheme to produce 15,000 ecstasy pills a day – but Widodo was unmoved.

Brazil and the Netherlands recalled their ambassadors from Jakarta after their nationals were executed in January, while Australia has been campaigning furiously to save two of its own citizens, with the country’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, attempting an eleventh-hour prisoner swap, which was rejected.

Widodo has met all such efforts with a simple answer: there will be “no compromise” on the issue.

Human rights advocates like Amnesty International have slammed the Indonesian president’s “backwards” stance on capital punishment, accusing him of manipulating data to support his decisions.

“He says that 40 to 50 people are dying every day from drugs, but where is that figure coming from?” asks Haris Azhar, coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), adding that the president’s actions came as a surprise as he never shared his views on capital punishment during his campaign.

“The hospitals, doctors and the health ministry aren’t giving us data. These figures are from the anti-drugs body BNN, but they have never been proven,” Azhar adds.

Other activists like Hendardi, head of the Setara Institute, believe the president is using the death penalty to protect his image and regain public support following criticism over his government’s weak performance in law enforcement.

“There are no statistics of a deterrent effect with the death penalty,” the human rights defender tells IPS. “Jokowi [a popular nickname for the president] is using the death penalty […] to prove to his critics that he is firm. I think he is trying to gain back popularity as the death penalty is still favoured among Indonesians.”

While there has been no comprehensive nationwide poll to assess public opinion on, or popular support for, capital punishment, surveys conducted by the media suggest that some 75 percent of the population is in favour of death sentences, primarily for terrorism, corruption and narcotics charges.

Death sentences are typically carried out by a firing squad comprised of 12 people, who shoot from a range of five to 10 metres. Prisoners are given the choice of standing or sitting, as well as whether to have their eyes covered by a blindfold, or their face concealed by a hood.

Inmates are generally informed of their fate just 72 hours prior to execution, a practice that has been blasted by human rights groups.

While the human rights minister admits that the death penalty may not solve all the country’s drug problems, he believes that a firm policy is the first step to preventing millions from falling “into ruin” at the hands of narcotics.

UNODC estimates that there are 110,000 heroin addicts and 1.2 million users of crystalline methamphetamine in Indonesia. But experts like Azhar feel the problem cannot be ‘executed away’. Instead, the Kontras coordinator suggests the country adopt a humane approach to law enforcement.

According to Amnesty International, some “140 countries have now abolished the death penalty. Indonesia has the opportunity to become the 141st country.” However, if the president’s resolve remains unchanged, this is unlikely to happen in the near future.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Trucks transport logs out of Riau, Sumatra, which has the highest deforestation rate in Indonesia. Credit: Sandra Siagian/IPS

By Sandra Siagian
JAKARTA, Jul 2 2014 (IPS)

As the world’s third-largest democracy heads to the polls next week to elect a new president, environmental activists remain sceptical of the candidates’ commitment to tackle climate change.

Over four televised debates, Indonesia’s presidential contenders – Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, Jakarta’s current governor, and Prabowo Subianto, a former general – have so far discussed their plans to shape the economy, boost international affairs, manage human capital and ensure clean governance.

“We must remember that decreasing emissions was a promise [made by] the current government, so whoever becomes president must respect the policy and follow through with it." -- Bustar Maitar, head of the Indonesian forest campaign at Greenpeace International
The environment is one of the last topics to be addressed in the final debate this Saturday ahead of the crucial Jul. 9 presidential election.

“I think because they [the candidates] don’t see Indonesia as a developed country, reducing emissions [is] not a priority for them,” explained Yuyun Indradi, a forest campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia-Indonesia, adding that a strong statement addressing environmental issues from either candidate could possibly convince swing voters.

He believes the issue of emissions reductions contradicts both candidates’ stated focus on economic growth as a priority for the next government.

But Farhan Helmy, manager of the Indonesia Climate Change Center (ICCC), does not see the issues as mutually exclusive. In an interview with IPS, he asserted that a green economy should be a platform for any party wishing to promote quality economic growth.

“So of course I would like to see the candidates make their environment policies the bigger picture,” he said. “My hope is that whoever leads the country will understand that we are not alone in terms of global efforts and we cannot work alone.”

In 2009, Indonesia’s outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pledged to reduce greenhouse emissions in the archipelago by 26 percent by 2020 – the equivalent of up to 767 million tons of carbon dioxide.

And last year, Yudhoyono extended a 2011 moratorium, which barred new logging and palm-oil plantation permits under a one-billion-dollar deal with Norway.

This moratorium, according to Bustar Maitar, head of the Indonesian forest campaign at Greenpeace International, will be the incoming government’s first real test.

It remains to be seen whether the new government will proceed with “business as usual, or move forward to give total protection to the forests,” he told IPS, insisting that protecting Indonesia’s forests is key to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“We must remember that decreasing emissions was a promise [made by] the current government, so whoever becomes president must respect the policy and follow through with it,” he added.

Designed to address Indonesia’s dubious title as the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after the United States and China, the Norwegian deal made its funding conditional on Indonesia adopting the United nations-backed Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) scheme.

So far, the country’s track record is poor. According to a study published this past Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change, Indonesia has outstripped Brazil to become the country with the world’s highest rate of deforestation, even though its rainforests amount to only a quarter of Brazil’s Amazon.

Conflicting data for the past decade suggests that Indonesia lost roughly 310,00 hectares of forest a year between 2000 and 2005, a number that increased to 690,000 hectares per annum between 2006 and 2010.

But researchers say that a million more hectares may have been cleared in the last 12 years than official statistics imply. According to Belinda Arunarwati Margono, one of the paper’s lead authors, Indonesia likely lost 840,000 hectares of its primary forest in 2012, putting it far ahead of Brazil, which felled about 460,000 hectares that same year.

In light of this, the new government has its work cut out for it. According to Norway’s ambassador to Indonesia, Stig Traavik, 95 percent of the three-phase billion-dollar deal will be available to the incoming government, should it choose to prioritise the issue.

“I have talked to both candidates about it,” Traavik told IPS. “Both clearly understand the issue. Both want to protect the remaining forest and both are interested in replanting.”

Currently, Indonesia is home to the world’s third largest stretch of tropical rainforest, after Brazil’s Amazon and the Congo.

Traavik said that while he has been happy with Indonesia’s progress to date, he would have “loved to see things move faster”.

“We changed our government last October and one of the first things that was said was that our commitment to cooperate with Indonesia stands. And we hope and expect that the incoming government here will do the same thing,” he concluded.

Taking the necessary steps to curb deforestation, however, will not be easy. Zenzi Suhadi, a campaigner with the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (WALHI), told IPS that the incoming government will need to do two things: stop the expansion of palm-oil plantations and mining, and conduct ecological restoration of forest areas as a crucial step in reviewing and changing permits for palm oil plantations.

WALHI data through 2012 showed that a full 56 million hectares of forest had been damaged by just four sectors – logging, tree plantation, mining and palm oil.

“An environment policy is important to address as it will affect many voters, especially those who have been victims of ecological disasters,” Suhadi told IPS.

Suhadi said that the “fundamental issues would be resolved” when the next government addresses five points: managing people’s lands rights, enforcing environment and forestry laws, the resulting loss of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), the loss of valuable biodiversity at multiple levels and the risk of environmental degradation.

This week, a green campaign aimed at boosting conversation among the key stakeholders across four issues – climate change, forestry, energy and cities – was launched by ICCC, Matsushita Gobel Foundation and Indonesia’s Council on Climate Change (DNPI).

Helmy, ICCC’s manager, told IPS that the initiative, “Presiden4Green”, will include public surveys across 10 cities to find out what kind of commitment the public wants from the candidates regarding environmental issues.

“We would like this campaign to go even beyond the presidential election,” explained Helmy, adding that it could run until January 2015.

“There will be continuous efforts to engage the major stakeholders in three stages – before the election, after the election and after the new government’s first 100 days in office.”

(END)

Logs stacked in Riau, Sumatra, which has one of Indonesia’s highest rates of deforestation. Credit: Sandra Siagian/IPS

By Sandra Siagian
JAKARTA, May 27 2014 (IPS)

Comprised of over 17,000 islands that are highly susceptible to rising seas, Indonesia is taking stock of its position as the world’s third leading emitter of greenhouse gases after the United States and China.

Faced with the upcoming GLOBE Summit of World Legislators, scheduled to take place in Mexico City next month to test a new international climate change agreement centered on national legislation, the Indonesian government is in a race against time to evaluate its existing climate change policies, and bring its laws in line with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s promise to slash carbon emissions by 26 percent by 2020.

The international community is largely agreed that the next two years will be crucial in determining the planet’s future vis-à-vis global warming. At the end of 2015, Paris will host the 21^st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an event scientists are calling the “last chance” for world leaders to agree on a global emissions peak.

"What we need [now] is to encourage frank and open dialogue between legislators and the government.” -- Farhan Helmy, manager of the Indonesia Climate Change Center (ICCC)
Indonesia is poised to play a significant role in negotiations, with local initiatives like its Green Economy Caucus (GEC) – a sustainable development model launched last year – offering valuable lessons for the international community.

But environmental experts here say that unless swift steps are taken to boost dialogue between legislators and government officials, the country will not advance far down its path towards sustainability.

Farhan Helmy, manager of the Indonesia Climate Change Centre (ICCC), is hopeful that the GLOBE summit will provide the basis for exactly this kind of conversation.

“The conversations so far [on climate change] have not been very well connected, even in Warsaw last year,” Helmy, who was a lead negotiator with the Indonesian delegation on climate change at the 2013 UNFCCC in Poland, told IPS.

“I don’t think we need to reinvent the wheel with less than two years left… What we do need is to encourage frank and open dialogue between the legislators and the government.”

Helmy strongly supports platforms like the GEC, comprised of a team of lawmakers who are plotting the country’s transition to a green economy, including identifying environmentally friendly methods of exploiting natural resources.

According to Satya Yudha, GEC’s president and a member of Indonesia’s House of Representatives who was recently re-elected for another five-year term in office, the caucus also focuses on devising green bills, creating a renewable energy strategy, and implementing the United Nations-backed REDD+ initiative (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).

The latter, Yudha told IPS, is essential for the management of land usage and for monitoring forest conservation and protected areas.

“Seventy percent of [Indonesia’s] carbon emissions come from land usage, and 30 percent from the energy sector,” he said, adding that legislators must push parliamentarians to prioritise environmental policies when setting the government’s annual budget.

Setyo Budiantoro from Prakarsa – the local NGO that helped set up the GEC – told IPS that one of Indonesia’s biggest obstacles was its parliamentarians’ mistrust in the very notion of climate change.

“That’s why there’s no…sense of urgency for parliamentarians to act on a climate change law,” the NGO’s executive director explained. “So that’s one of GEC’s main objectives, to create more awareness.”

The case for a multi-sector approach

Indonesia’s attempts to cut emissions caused by deforestation also serve as an excellent case study on the need for collaboration between lawmakers and various government sectors.

Deforestation has been rampant here in recent years, mainly due to the world’s hunger for palm oil, pulp and paper. According to a 2013 study published in ‘Science’ magazine, the country’s rate of deforestation between 2000 and 2003 totalled roughly one million hectares a year, and doubled to two million hectares a year between 2011 and 2012.

The destruction has led to deadly flash floods, landslides and the loss of habitat for endangered species like orangutans and rhinos.

Last year Yudhoyono extended a 2011 moratorium, which barred new logging and palm-oil plantation permits under a one-billion-dollar deal with Norway.

The extension of the landmark ban on clearing primary rainforests and peat lands will preserve 64 million hectares until 2015. However, environmentalists have been sceptical that some protected areas continue to be exploited due to corruption, illegal fires and logging.

A recent Human Rights Watch report argued that Indonesia’s forestry ministry failed to “accurately map forests, land use, and concession boundaries, and did not fairly allocate use rights.”

Citing an investigation by the country’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), the report, entitled ‘The Dark Side of Green Growth’, found that these “weaknesses were central causes of persistent corruption and lost government revenue, as well as high levels of deforestation.”

Muhammad Farid from REDD+ believes that Indonesia “needs to enforce policies from the top level to monitor all land sectors for unplanned deforestation, illegal logging, encroachment and forest fires.”

“REDD+ can’t fix everything,” he told IPS. “We need support from other ministries within Indonesia to really make a difference. Mining, agriculture, home affairs, they all need to coordinate with the government. This is not an easy task, but it will eventually be done.”

Locally, the jury is still out on Yudhoyono’s voluntary pledge to severely reduce carbon emissions by the end of the decade. Some experts, like Yudha, admit the president is on the right path, but are concerned about balancing an “ambitious” target with savvy economic policies.

Others, like Farid, are more optimistic, convinced that the right policies and incentives could put the country within reach of the goal in six years.

“If we [successfully] reduce encroachment and [improve] the state of our forests, and also…reduce unplanned deforestation and illegal logging, I think this goal can be reached,” he said.

With presidential elections scheduled for July, it remains to be seen whether or not the new government will follow in Yudhoyono’s footsteps.

“My hope is that whoever leads the country understands that we are not alone in [these] efforts,” Helmy asserted, adding that Indonesia is just one of many countries actively participating in global negotiations on climate change.

“I think the stakes for us are quite high… we have small islands and rising sea levels.”

Given that reality, if Indonesia fails to take concrete steps to strengthen its national legislation it will stop being part of the solution and join the ranks of the “troublemakers in the global society,” he added.

The caretaker at the Al Misbah mosque in Bekasi looks through a hole of the sealed door. Credit: Rebecca Lake/IPS

By Sandra Siagian and Rebecca Lake
JAKARTA/NEW YORK, May 31 2013 (IPS)

Standing in front of the two-metre concrete wall, barbed wire and corrugated iron fence that surrounds his mosque, Muhammad Iqbal says he feels like a second-class citizen in his own country.

The head of a beleaguered Ahmadiyya Muslim sect in the Bekasi, West Java was forced out of his mosque in April after local authorities shut it down following protests from Islamic hardliners.“The Yudhoyono government’s failed to confront militant groups whose thuggish harassments and assaults on houses of worship and members of religious miniorities has become increasingly aggressive." -- HRW's Andreas Harsono

The Al Misbah mosque in Pondok Gede, about an hour away from Indonesia’s capital Jakarta, was barricaded with an iron sheet by the local municipality to prevent its members from entering.

Sixteen people from the Ahmadiyya community remain locked inside as a means of protest, relying on the community to throw food and supplies over the high barricade.

“I feel uncomfortable because there is no freedom to practice religion,” Iqbal told IPS on Tuesday in front of his mosque, which has been offering a place of worship since 1998.

“The head of the Satpol PP [regional public order agency] said that we couldn’t practice here. But we have nowhere else to go. As an Indonesian, we should get the same treatment. We are very sad and uncomfortable.”

This situation experienced by Bekasi’s Ahmadiyya is certainly not an isolated one.

In the same province as the Al Misbah mosque, local authorities demolished a Christian church in March after they claimed the congregation did not hold a valid building permit to worship.

Pastor Torang Simanjuntak of the HKBP Taman Sari church in Setu, could only stand back and cry with his congregation as they watched the destruction unfold before their eyes.

“Where is your heart and feeling Mr. SBY?” a congregation member screamed in reference to Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono before the church was knocked down.” When people cry out in other countries, people will hear. But when we cry out in our own country, people don’t hear us.”

Intolerance on the rise

International world leaders have often praised the archipelagic nation, which requires its citizens to choose from one of only six official religions, as a model for religious harmony.

But recently human rights groups have documented a rise in religiously motivated conflict and discrimination. Attacks on minority religious groups including Ahmadiyahs, Bahai, Christians, and Shia Muslims have increased, from 244 violent attacks in 2011 to 264 in 2012 according to the Jakarta-based Setara Institute.

Many critics, including international rights group Human Rights Watch, point to the government’s “inaction”, “complicity” and the nation’s discriminatory laws which include permit regulations for houses of worship and the highly controversial 2008 Ahmadiyya decree, which bans the minority Islamic faith from propagating their belief.

But Indonesia’s secretary general for the Ministry of Religious Affairs, Bahrul Hayat, dismisses any ideas of intolerance in his country, deeming the nation a model place of religious harmony.

“In Indonesia, the process of democracy I think gives open space to everybody and of course there are limitations,” Hayat explained. “So I don’t see that this [intolerance] is appropriate to label this as an increase in terms of religious conflict in the country.”

Indonesia is among the top 15 countries in the Pew Research Center’s 2012 social hostilities index, which monitors religious freedom of 197 countries, and is listed as a country with “very high government restrictions on religion,” alongside Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

Daniel Baer, the U.S. Department of State’s deputy assistant secretary for the bureau of democracy, human rights and labour, who was a witness at last week’s Human Rights Commission Hearing on Indonesia in Washington D.C., acknowledged that Indonesia’s issues regarding religious intolerance were complicated.

He highlighted a combination of factors that are fueling the issue which he said included “deep societal prejudices which are something that won’t be solved in the short term by the government.”

However, Baer noted that despite the complexity there were certainly proactive actions that the government could and should take now.

Governments don’t just a have a responsibility to participate but they have an affirmative responsibility to protect people,” he told IPS.

“There are steps the government can take including repealing blashphemy laws. They can change the laws regarding the anti-Ahmadiyya decree in 2008. Laws send a signal. They not only have a direct implication but they send signals to the broader community about who counts and who deserves sole protections.”

Contradictory award

Aggravating this already contentious issue is an award that Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono received by New York-based interfaith coalition the Appeal of Conscience Foundation on Thursday night.

After significant criticism from Indonesians, which included protests and petitions, Yudhoyono accepted the World Statesman award in recognition of his work to support human rights and religious freedom in the country.

The Foundation, whose officials declined to be interviewed for this story, instead issued a statement explaining their decision to honour Yudhoyono.

“As the first directly elected President of the world’s most populous Muslim Country, President Yudhoyono is recognized for his pursuit of peace and helping Indonesia evolve into a democratic society and an opponent of extremism,” the Foundation said.

An IPS request for comment from the Indonesian Mission to the United Nations was not responded to by deadline.

However, John M. Miller, National Coordinator for the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network, who organised the protest, told IPS there has been little willingness to prosecute previous human rights abuses.

“[ETAN’s] position is that the Indonesian Foreign Ministry has been asked to find awards for the president, and are trying to burnish his image as a statesman and humanitarian” before he leaves office, Miller said.

Kurnia Hutapea, an architect, traveled from Baltimore to attend the protest. A Christian, his family had their church destroyed in Indonesia.

“To [have to] get a permit to build churches, that’s not freedom of religion at all, and that’s why I smell something behind this award,” Hutapea told IPS.

Andreas Harsono, Indonesia researcher for Human Rights Watch, also believes that President Yudhoyno’s leadership is in direct conflict with the foundation’s ethos.

“The Yudhoyono government’s failed to confront militant groups whose thuggish harassments and assaults on houses of worship and members of religious miniorities has become increasingly aggressive,” Harsono told IPS.

Iqbal said on Tuesday that he hoped the award would be an incentive for improvement.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if the president could fix religious intolerance in his own country first?” the Ahmadiyya leader said.

“He is happy to help other countries fight intolerance like in Myanmar, but he needs to fix intolerance problems in his own country first. He hasn’t directly instructed his government to fix the problems.”

Emilia Az, a Shia Muslim who helps mediate resolution conflicts between religious groups, echoed Iqbal’s concerns.

It would be OK for him [the president] to accept the award, but he has to solve the problems of minorities before he decides to go,” Az told IPS, who gathered with minority groups on Sunday to present a mock award to the president showcasing images of intolerant acts from across the country.

“He’s saying that this is for the Indonesian people, but all these minority groups’ problems have not been solved.”

*Lucy Westcott reported from New York.

While athletes around the world enter their final stages of training for the 30th Olympic Games in London this July, Saudi Arabia stands alone as the only country that has banned females from participating.

Qatar and Brunei, who previously banned women from the international event for cultural and religious reasons, will send female athletes for the first time.

But Saudi Arabia has never nominated a woman to participate in the Olympic Games, a ban that stems from strict government policy denying women and girls’ right to practice sports, with conservative religious clerics fearing that it could lead them on a “path of immorality”.

A Human Rights Watch report released in February, called on Saudi Arabia to protect women’s equal right to sports and urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to live up to its charter, which prohibits discrimination, or face a ban similar to that imposed on Afghanistan in 1999 partly for its exclusion of female athletes.

Christoph Wilcke, author of ‘Steps Of The Devil’ and senior Middle East researcher for Human Rights Watch, said it was time for the IOC to act on its membership rules.

“Saudi Arabia is violating the rules but the question is whether a ban will help or make things worse,” Wilcke, who is based in Munich, told IPS.

“The jury is out on that. I think two months before the start of the games would be the ideal time for the IOC to enforce their rules. Saudi Arabia clearly wants to participate by sending a male-only team. But their violations of the rules are coming at no price at all.”

Prince Nawwaf bin Faisal, Saudi Olympic Committee president, announced last November that only a men’s team would participate at Games. He did not rule out the possibility of women competing but said it would only be by invitation from outside bodies.

He added that woman would have to be in the appropriate dress according to Islamic precepts, be in the presence of a male guardian and perform sport so that no part of her was visible, thereby not violating Islamic sharia law.

Religious and cultural rights

Women have the opportunity to play sports in all Muslim and Arab countries with support from their governments and national sporting authorities – except in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi National Olympic Committee and the country’s 29 national sports federations offer no women’s sections or competitions for aspiring female athletes.

Wilcke said the women who propagate the right to practice sport had the better argument in terms of religion.

“There’s no religious ban on women playing sport at all; what the opponents argue is a traditional, male dominated, patriarchal view, that women should remain at home and not go out.”

The Saudi government only offers physical education classes at state schools for boys, and men’s gyms receive licences confining women’s facilities to health clubs that are usually attached to hospitals.

Of the 153 government-regulated sports clubs, none has a women’s team.

Anthony Billingsley, international studies and Middle East lecturer at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, told IPS that even if Saudi Arabia lifted their ban to allow women to compete, it would take years to produce an international-level female athlete.

“If you want to be a runner in Saudi Arabia, you have to do it indoors in a place that’s associated with a hospital or something,” according to Billingsley, who has spent many years living and working in the Middle East.

“There’s no real opportunity for women to get out and really exercise and compete against others, just running or riding by yourself isn’t going to help. Time isn’t the problem, the problem is that they don’t have the opportunity to prepare, to learn or refine their skills.”

An ABC Radio journalist and lecturer at RMIT University in Melbourne said Saudi Arabia’s ban on female participation in sport reflected the strict interpretation of Islam practiced with a theological perspective that men and women should not mix.

“I guess that’s the perspective of the quite conservative and very traditional form of Islam that Saudi operates on,” Nasya Bahfen told IPS.

“To them, having women on the field, running around, being looked at by men is tantamount to being blasphemous and completely un-Islamic. Whereas in other countries like Iran,they let women play but don’t allow them to watch (football games) or (appear) on a football field. Iran on the sporting field is not that bad compared with Saudi in terms of segregation.”

Are sports a priority?

Discrimination against women and girls in sport is one of many violations against women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. Women are banned from driving and under the state system of male guardianship, Saudi women of all ages need a male guardian’s consent to receive certain health care, to work, to study or to marry.

“Saudi Arabia is on its slow crawl towards modernity where they will look at women’s rights (first in terms of) driving and other basic (priorities) and then move on to professional sport,” Bahfen said.

“Education is one field where Saudi women have some measure of equality. But (even) then they get pushed into quite traditional jobs. There’s obviously a pressing need for female doctors, female nurses and female teachers, but there’s very little encouragement for women to pursue non-traditional employment.”

Billingsley added that changing women’s status would require a huge generational and educational step.

Wilcke said it would come down to a change in government policy for women to have basic rights and a degree of political power.

“We know that you can’t dismantle a system of discrimination within three months,” Wilcke said, referring to the slim possibility of change before the Olympic Games in July.

“But we want to see good faith and immediate efforts on this issue and we have suggested announcing a date for when physical education is introduced for girls in state schools and then laying out a timeline to open up a women’s section in government-regulated sports clubs (and) national sporting federations.”

“These are fairly simple steps that (lay) the infrastructural groundwork for women to start practicing sports before we get Olympic-quality athletes,” he concluded.

A new book on the influential New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman sets out to debunk his hawkish, neoliberal views, accusing him of overt racism, factual errors and skewed judgments on issues ranging from the U.S. invasion of Iraq to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Thomas Friedman Credit: Charles Haynes/CC-BY-SA-2.0

Deconstructing one of the country’s highest-paid journalists, Belen Fernandez’s “The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work” presents a comprehensive overview of the man – and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner – she describes as “characterised by a reduction of complex international phenomena to simplistic rhetoric and theorems that rarely withstand the test of reality”.

Fernandez, 29, admits that prior to 2009 she wasn’t too familiar with the work of the foreign affairs columnist. It wasn’t until that summer she decided to analyse Friedman’s work after reading “a sequence of ridiculous articles”.

Finding it difficult to “cram all of that incompetence into a concise book”, Fernandez divided the content into three issues that “most enraged” her, analysing his work along with a brief examination of the shortcomings of the U.S. media.

“The Imperial Messenger” looks at Friedman’s obsession with U.S. global dominance, his Orientalism vis-à-vis the Arab/Muslim world, and his special relationship with Israel.

It took her just over a year, working as an editor and feature writer at Pulse Media, in which she read every column he had written since 1995 three times. She also read a selection of his articles that were free to access from the New York Times archive, from 1981 to 1995.

The final product, written in a punchy and often sarcastic tone, offers a concise overview that is accessible even for those who aren’t familiar with Friedman’s work.

Media darling

Fernandez explained that the first chapter, “America”, incorporates Friedman’s “cheerleading of punitive economic systems at home and abroad” while the “Special Relationship” chapter delves into the inconsistencies of his persona as a serious critic of the Jewish state.

“His criticism, of course, is limited to intermittently encouraging the Israelis to slightly curtail settlements,” Fernandez told IPS. “Not because he cares about the plight of non-settlers, but because he wants to avoid a situation in which Palestinians demand equal rights in a multiethnic democracy.”

As an example, Fernandez cites his advocacy of the war in Iraq “to create a free, open and progressive model in the heart of the Arab/Muslim world to promote the ideas of tolerance, pluralism and democratisation”.

She says Friedman wrote this after having said in 2002 that “unless the U.S. encourage(s) alternative energies that will slowly bring the price of oil down and force Arab/Muslim countries to open up and adapt to modernity – we can invade Iraq once a week and it’s not going to unleash democracy in the Arab world.”

In the same year, Friedman classifies the invasion of Iraq as “the most important task worth doing and worth debating”, even while admitting that it “would be a huge, long, costly task – if it is doable at all, and I am not embarrassed to say that I don’t know if it is.”

In the “Arab/Muslim World” chapter, she quotes Friedman as concluding that the “short answer” for why the U.S. invaded Iraq and Afghanistan in response to 9/11 “is because Pakistan has nukes that we fear and Saudi Arabia has oil that we crave”.

Fernandez notes that Friedman is never forced to formally retreat or even informally amend offensive and racist statements, meanwhile diverting attention from the role of Israel in generating regional rage by accusing the Palestinians of “a collective madness”.

Friedman’s power and freedom to express his views is made evident when Fernandez describes the latitude granted him by the New York Times. Take this excerpt:

“Readers of Friedman’s column are often reminded that New York Times columnists are not permitted to endorse U.S. presidential candidates. The blatant endorsement of war crimes like collective punishment, however, is apparently less polemical, even when columnists cannot keep track of their own reasons for said punishment.

“In separate reflections on the war with Serbia published two months apart in 1999, Friedman writes in the former that ‘once the (Kosovar) refugee evictions began… using a huge air war for a limited objective was the only thing that made sense.’ He then adds that he may indeed understand the true sequence of events: NATO bombed, and (Slobodan) Milosevic began ruthlessly killing and evicting Kosovar Albanians.”

Whatever the reader’s political bent, “The Imperial Messenger” raises thought-provoking questions about the objectivity of mainstream media when it comes to U.S. economic and foreign policy interests.

After stripping down columns, articles and his books, Fernandez said her perception of Friedman worsened from beginning to end.

“I realised how truly criminal his behaviour is, whereas before I had thought of him more as a somewhat amusing purveyor of mixed metaphors who had by accident ascended to the post of New York Times foreign affairs columnist,” she told IPS.

“The New York Times is totally complicit in Friedman’s crimes, just as it was complicit in selling the whole business of the Iraq war. The degenerate state of the mainstream media, which actively sides with corporate profit over human life, is simply a testament to the importance of alternative media outlets.”

The popular Puerto Rican band Calle 13 is joining UNICEF's new campaign against human trafficking. Credit: Sandra Siagian/IPS

By Sandra Siagian and - -
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 27 2011 (IPS)

It happens every day across the globe, with many of its young victims lured by false promises into the world’s third most profitable criminal activity. This is human trafficking.

The popular Puerto Rican band Calle 13 is joining UNICEF's new campaign against human trafficking. Credit: Sandra Siagian/IPS

According to Tamar Hahn, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) communications specialist for Latin America and the Caribbean, the highest rate of trafficked children into the U.S. comes from Latin America, with more than 17,000 children trafficked into the U.S. in 2010.

Hahn told IPS that poverty, violence and lack of education are the main issues leading young people to fall into trafficking.

“While it is hard to quickly change these underlying causes of trafficking or exploitation, UNICEF is trying to install more knowledge and awareness around the issue,” she said. “Young people are looking for opportunities overseas for study or work and this is how (others) can exploit them.”

“This is one of the most pressing issues drawing young people in and we need to educate them to have a better understanding of situations to avoid and how to prevent themselves from being exposed.”

Hahn said UNICEF has linked trafficking around the world with migration, especially in Latin America, from where there is a strong flow into the U.S.

However, migration can be internal as well, Hahn said. “This could happen when people migrate from rural to urban areas. There have been times when some children get stuck in Mexico when they travel from Central America to the U.S.”

Renewing efforts

In mid-November, UNICEF launched a new campaign to tackle the issues of trafficking, exploitation and HIV in Latin America, joining forces with MTV Latin America and TR3S to create MTV EXIT.

The campaign will primarily use social media outlets and a documentary, to be broadcast on MTV Latin America and debuting Nov. 29. It will also enlist the help of Calle 13, a band that has won multiple Latin Grammy awards, to help spread the message to youth.

“We have been working with Calle 13 over the past few months on the production of the documentary and music video and we feel that this collaboration is going to have a strong impact on the issue,” Simon Goff, CEO of MTV EXIT, told IPS.

“We believe Calle 13’s involvement will have a big impact in engaging and inspiring youth on this issue,” Goff added, citing the group’s credibility among both Latin American and U.S. audience and their commitment to the issue.

Rene Perez Joglar, who makes up half of the band, said at a press conference on Monday that he was drawn to the campaign when he found out about victims of child labour and those being sexually exploited.

Joglar likened the situation in Latin America to the 21st century version of slavery, calling it devastating, “because children are the future of every country’s development.”

Preventative strategies

Hahn said prevention through education was the best chance of decreasing trafficking numbers.

“We created the documentary, particularly targeting Latin America, after the success of similar campaigns by MTV EXIT in Asia and Eastern Europe,” she said.

“This way we don’t have to recreate the wheel, just adapt it for Latin America. The main message is to be aware through an effective campaign. We are also utilising social media networks to spread the word.”

Bernt Aasen, UNICEF regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said the partnership provided key cultural references for young people and allowed the organisation to reach millions of potential victims by communicating with them directly, using their language.

“Increasingly adolescents and young people are vulnerable to being trafficked and exploited in the region,” said Aasen. “We can reduce the risks they are exposed to if we provide them with the necessary education and tools to protect themselves.”

Goff, of MTV EXIT, added that the partnership created a powerful combination to effectively promote social change. “These programmes, we hope, will only represent the first step in a long term commitment to combating trafficking in Latin America,” he told IPS.

“It will help us a lot because they are the biggest band in Latin America. They are at their peak and they have a very powerful and direct contact with young people in their region. When a message comes from someone you look up to, it will have an entirely different impact.”

Excerpt:

Breaking down gender roles, Sonwabo Qathula in an Eastern Cape kitchen. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

By Sandra Siagian and - -
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 26 2011 (IPS)

Since it launched in 1997, the United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women has distributed more than 78 million dollars to 339 projects around the world, but even these resources fall far short, meeting less than five percent of demand.

Breaking down gender roles, Sonwabo Qathula in an Eastern Cape kitchen. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

This year alone, more than 2,500 applications requesting about 1.2 billion dollars for programmes across 123 countries have been received.

Past grants have supported a wide variety of projects, including work to prevent violence against women and girls through empowering and engaging strategic groups like youth, men and boys in prevention efforts, expanded survivor access to effective services, and strengthening the implementation of laws, policies and action plans.

Ali Raad, 32, is a youth leader in a project mobilising men to end violence against women in Lebanon. The project is supported by the U.N Trust Fund and is implemented by Oxfam Great Britain and its national partner KAFA (Enough) Violence & Exploitation.

Magda El Sanousi, country director of Oxfam GB in Lebanon, has spearheaded the project that works with men and boys to try and change their attitudes and behaviour towards violence against women since it was launched three years ago.

“It is quite an emotional process to create awareness and stimulate debates about violence against women with men,” Sanousi told IPS. “Men tend to act shy as it is quite shameful for them to stand up in public and tell people that they have been violent with their families. We try and develop peer discussions so they can speak up and share their experiences with the rest of the group before we try and find solutions on how to change their behaviour.”

Sanousi said they had already seen signs of progress, with improvement seen among the younger male generation who were more open to listening, growing numbers joining the campaign, and the launch of the Middle East’s first White Ribbon campaign in 2010 – a project mobilising young men to take a stand against violence in support of a national bill addressing intrafamily violence.

In a study conducted by KAFA in 2010, 300 young men from remote areas in Lebanon were asked, “Why do men behave this way?” Sanousi told IPS the results indicated that men said they were brought up and socialised to be violent as a reflection of male masculinity.

“To be accepted in the society, they had to show that they were harsh with women,” Sanousi told IPS. “If they didn’t perform these roles they could be criticised and be told ‘you’re not man’ and this would hurt a lot of the younger generation.”

Sanousi said Ali was a good example of change as he had become a, “change maker, role model and advocate to his peers”, since becoming a youth leader.

“Change is possible”

At the official U.N commemoration to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and the 15th anniversary of the U.N. Trust Fund on Wednesday, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called for more donors to help reach 100 million dollars for the campaign by 2015.

Urging governments and the corporate sector, the secretary-general said funding was necessary to “harness the energy, ideas and leadership of young people to help end this pandemic”.

“We want people everywhere to speak up and say no to violence against women and girls,” Ban said at the event, which focused on youth leadership.

One of the main targets of the U.N Trust Fund is Ban’s UNiTE campaign – a project launched in 2008 that aims to raise public awareness and increase political will and resources for preventing and responding to all forms of violence against women and girls worldwide.

Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. Under-Secretary-General and executive direct of U.N. women, also spoke at the event and credited the U.N Trust Fund for highlighting what policies work to end violence against women over the past 15 years.

“Change is possible and the strategies and innovations that have developed with support from the U.N. Trust Fund are a strong testament to the fact that we are at a unique moment in history to put an end to violence against women,” said Bachelet. “It is time to translate this momentum into reality for women and girls and their communities and nations.”

Sixteen days and 16 steps

While women continue to be subjected to violence worldwide, there has been some progress. Today, 125 countries have laws that penalise domestic violence and equality between women and men is guaranteed in some 139 countries and territories.

Still, Bachelet estimates that up to six in 10 women have suffered physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, a majority from their husbands or partners.

To mark the start of the 16 Days of Activism on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Bachelet outlined a 16-step policy to end violence against women. Steps include ratifying treaties and revising laws, providing universal access to emergency services for survivors of violence and mobilising communities through public education and advocacy.

“We have said so many times that violence against women and girls can be prevented and we all have a responsibility in this and it’s not only and solely the woman’s issue. Not only in the campaign but throughout the year, we must take bold action,” Bachelet said at the conference on Wednesday.

“This is the only way that violence will end, we need to make stronger action and we need stronger leadership. This is why we have been part of the 16-day campaign, calling on countries to take 16 steps forward, steps that are proven to be effective, to prevent violence from happening in the first place and to protect women and girls and to provide essential services to survive.

“It’s not easy to forget. It’s the three P’s – protection, prevention and provision of services.”

Excerpt:

A woman holds a sign at Occupy Wall Street. Credit: Timothy Krause/CC BY 2.0

By Sandra Siagian and - -
NEW YORK, Nov 21 2011 (IPS)

On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on Nov. 25, a group of feminist organisations will unite to launch a campaign calling for an end of the “immoral and unethical economy of Wall Street” against women and people of colour.

The Clear Action for/by Women (CLAW) coalition, which includes AF3IRM, Black Women’s Blueprint, Feminism Now Podcast, ANSWER/PSL and Sister Song, are demanding a more “ethical and equitable economy and to end the deliberate victimisation of women and of communities and even nations of colour.”

Organisers are planning to take advantage of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement by injecting some feminist and women of colour perspective, with their own speak-out assembly, rally and march from New York’s Battery Park to Zuccotti Park Friday.

“The other organisations realised they were working on the same idea, so we decided to kick off the 16 days against gender violence with a joint campaign,” Leilani Montes, an organiser from AF3IRM, told IPS. “Not only will this be a great way to start the campaign, but it will also be a great opportunity to be part of the OWS movement.”

Farah Tanis, co-founder and executive director of Black Women’s Blueprint, told IPS that she viewed their human rights campaign, in a context over 16 days, in the same light as the OWS movement.

“Basically centring women’s issues and anti-racism race issues right within the context of the economic justice movement is how I’m seeing the OWS movement,” said Tanis. “To place women and place people of colour squarely within the context of that economic justice movement and that to us is really a human rights approach. I mean you can’t really separate the right to an adequate standard of living is what we’re talking about.”

Tanis said their campaign would amplify the voices of women and focus on different intersections with women.

“This is about years and centuries of abuse, economic abuse against women, economic abuse against people of colour,” Tanis told IPS.

“This has sort of been swept under the rug and that’s why not too many of us have been represented in movements like the occupy, so we’re bringing in the historical context and we’re trying to highlight and show that historically, we have been kept out of the economic justice movement and we see this as an extension of the civil rights movement in terms of economic justice and economic equity that takes into consideration our race and gender.”

Bridging the gap

According to AF3IRM, Wall Street’s war against women has left 21 million impoverished women in the U.S. and a 500-percent increase in the number of jailed women. Their figures also revealed that more than 200,000 women are sexually assaulted every year, with women under 24 showing the highest rates of abuse.

In a New York Women’s Foundation 2009 report, “The Economic Status of Women of Color in New York State”, found that despite having the highest rate of participation in the labour force, black and Latina women lagged behind white and Asian women in terms of earnings.

2010 Census data supported the reality that women were poorer than men in all racial and ethnic groups, with the gap in poverty rates between men and women wider in the United States than anywhere else in the Western world.

Women of colour earned lower wages than white women as well as their male counterparts. U.S. Bureau of Labor Stats 2011 revealed that the median weekly wage for black women was 605 dollars and 510 dollars for Latina women, compared to 695 dollars for white women.

Tanis said beyond the financial ties, healthcare was another strong element that lacked equal support.

“What poverty means to a woman is very different to what poverty means to a man or for someone who has white privileges or access to resources,” Tanis said.

“For women in poverty, lack of healthcare means the lack of a gynaecologist and reproductive care. Therefore there is an increased risk for reproductive cancers, an increased inability to do preventative care in terms of hearth health, HIV screening. All of these things are linked together for us at the intersection.”

While Tanis and Montes both have strong support for the OWS movement, one of their concerns regarded the violence and reported sexism or discrimination against women at the protests.

“While we support the core message in terms of the 99 percent, we want to make sure there are safe places for people of colour,” Montes told IPS. “These need to be safe spaces for women and these are really the messages that we want to take down there and frame it within the historical context in terms of when we talk about truth commission.

Continuous space

While the organisers admit they don’t know the exact direction or longevity of their campaign, they did make the decision to remain active and create a space where women could come together and be proactive around the issues of violence against women.

“There are other spaces of existence, but we can never have enough spaces to continue our work,” Montes told IPS. “I would like to see the Nov. 25 coalition, we may need to call it something else as it continues to evolve, but I would like to see us continue to strategise for years to come and not just be reactive but be proactive around those.”

“The event will raise the potential for us to move forward with confidence and a learning pad. This is just the beginning,” she said.

Excerpt:

Two victims of cluster munitions in Ta Oy Province, Laos. Credit: John Rodsted

By Sandra Siagian and - -
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 18 2011 (IPS)

Deliberations are underway for a United States-backed proposal to allow the continued use, production, trade and stockpiling of cluster munitions at the Fourth Review Conference of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) in Geneva.

Delegates from some 100 countries have been meeting since Monday and will continue until Nov. 25 to consider whether to allow a controversial new protocol to the CCW permitting the use of cluster munitions produced after 1980.

Cluster munitions are an indiscriminate weapon designed to break open mid-air and release between a dozen and a few hundred sub-munitions. Each is the size of a soda can and impacts an area as large as several football fields.

When the sub-munitions explode, they fire hundreds of fragments of metal that travel at the speed of a bullet, which can kill or seriously injure anyone in the area.

The CCW currently bans the weapons, requires destruction of stockpiles within eight years, and mandates clearance of areas contaminated by cluster munitions within 10 years and assistance to victims.

In his opening statement, the U.S. delegation head Phillip Spector said, “A CCW protocol based on this (new draft) text offers the only chance of bringing the world’s major cluster munitions users and producers — who represent between 85 and 90 percent of the world’s cluster munitions stockpiles, and are not in a position to join the Oslo Convention — into a legally binding set of prohibitions and regulations.”

“The ban on cluster munitions produced before 1980 would immediately, upon ratification and entry into force, prohibit over two million cluster munitions – representing more than 100 million submunitions — of the total U.S. stockpile of more than six million cluster munitions.”

“In other words, the pre-1980 rule alone will prohibit more cluster munitions for the United States than the Oslo Convention has prohibited for all of its member states combined. We know the protocol will have a strong impact on other states as well,” he said.

Spector added that the draft text would immediately prohibit the transfer of all cluster munitions that do not possess a safeguard, and would commit states to a legally-binding, time-bound framework for the prohibition of all cluster munitions without a safeguard.

However, several prominent humanitarian organisations say the draft is unacceptable and would inevitably cause more civilian deaths.

“We have gone through this process in creating the Convention on Cluster of Munitions (also known as the Oslo Convention), this strong treaty, to protect civilians from the harm that cluster munitions can cause,” Zach Hudson, coordinator of the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines and Cluster Bombs for Handicap International, told IPS.

“This backslide is really unacceptable. In the concept of protecting civilians, we have the strongest law possible – we already have that, there is no point in creating cover for the country. It essentially undermines the norm that’s been created by the Convention on Cluster Munitions, so it’s weaker than the national legislation,” he said.

Hudson said the U.S. should stop backing the proposed CCW protocol and discontinue pressuring other states to support an international law “which is far less stringent”.

Steve Goose, Cluster Munition Coalition chair and executive director of the Human Rights Watch Arms Division, agreed. “Cluster munitions were banned three years ago due to the unacceptable harm that they cause to civilians,” said Goose. “It’s reprehensible to even consider creating another law allowing their use.”

Emma Ruby-Sachs, campaign director at Avaaz, said hundreds of thousands of people across the world have raised their voices in support of the hard-won treaty to ban cluster bombs.

“They are calling on their governments to stand up to U.S. bullying and ensure these cruel and indiscriminate weapons aren’t reintroduced at this week’s meeting, endangering innocent lives.”

A step backwards

The new “Cluster Munition Monitor 2011” report highlights the positive impact of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, implemented in August 2010.

“By destroying stockpiles, carrying out clearance operations and adopting new laws, the state parties have made considerable efforts to adhere to this treaty,” said Paul Vermeulen, advocacy and international relations manager for Handicap International.

“After just one year in force, the progress made is outstanding. Adopting this protocol would constitute a huge step backwards in international humanitarian law. A setback of this significance is unprecedented. States using cluster bombs are hiding behind this text to legitimise their use of these weapons, 98 percent of whose recorded victims are civilians.”

The report notes that in 2010, state parties destroyed almost 600,000 cluster bombs that contained more than 64.5 million cluster munitions. Almost 60,000 unexploded cluster munitions were destroyed in decontamination operations throughout the world and 18 million square metres had been cleared of mines.

While 31 countries or territories remain contaminated by cluster munitions, more than half are already committed to abolish these weapons by becoming state parties to the treaty, including Afghanistan and Lebanon.

However, two non-state parties, Libya and Cambodia, used cluster munitions this year, and at least 16,921 cluster munition victims have been identified worldwide – with more victims that remain unreported.

Of the 119 countries that have joined the CCW, 76 have also joined the Convention on Cluster Munitions and are bound by the higher standards. But even though some of these nations have banned the weapons, including France, Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom, they have also supported the new protocol.

Handicap International says the proposed CCW protocol is weak and replete with exceptions, loopholes and deferral periods.

Hudson told IPS that most older cluster munitions have already been destroyed, and that recent incidents of cluster munition use by Thailand, Cambodia, the U.S., Georgia and Russia involved weapons produced after January 1980.

“The draft is misleading with a provision that prohibits the use of weapons with less than a one-percent failure rate,” Hudson told IPS. “Weapons, for example, that were used in Lebanon, where they were supposed to have less than one-percent failure rate, in fact had between a 15 to 30-percent failure rate.”

Other issues include the use of cluster munitions with a safeguard mechanism, a self-destruct option for munitions left unexploded on the ground, and a deferral period of 12 years to allow states to continue using cluster munitions that will later be banned by the protocol.

“If you speak to states who support this, they will say something like, this will capture states who are not part of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but this is very misleading because it doesn’t actually bind them to very much, it binds them to the weapons they wouldn’t use anyway and even the requirements are optional,” Hudson told IPS.

Excerpt:

More than 5,000 Haitian cholera victims are seeking compensation, action and an apology from the U.N. and the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) for the ongoing epidemic that has killed more than 6,600 Haitians and sickened more than 476,000 since October 2010.

A young child is seen crossing one of the canals of the Artibonite River, identified as the source of the cholera outbreak. Credit: UN Photo/Sophia Paris

Brian Concannon, who is based in Boston and is the director at the Institute of Justice and Democracy in Haiti, helped organise a petition from Haitian victims and relatives of victims, before filing the claim to the U.N. simultaneously with a claim to its peacekeeping mission MINUSTAH in Haiti, last Thursday.

The victims’ petition alleges that the U.N. and MINUSTAH are liable for hundreds of millions of dollars for failing to screen and treat peacekeeping soldiers arriving from Southeast Asian countries experiencing cholera epidemics, dumping untreated waste from a U.N. base directly into Haiti’s longest and most important river, the Artibonite, and failing to respond adequately to the epidemic.

Concannon and his team say in the petition that reports compiled by the United States-based Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the Harvard Cholera Group, Dr. Renaud Piarroux, a French epidemiologist who has spent his career studying cholera, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, England and the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul, Korea found that the Vibrio cholerae bacteria was introduced to Haitian waters by MINUSTAH personnel deployed to Haiti from Nepal.

Prior to the peacekeepers’ arrival, Haiti had not reported a single case of cholera for more than 50 years.

“We originally thought the U.N. would take on responsibility as we didn’t originally see this as a legal case at first. But we could no longer dismiss the people after no action was taken.”

Vibrio cholera

Cholera, a waterborne illness that causes diarrhoea and vomiting, is a result of an infection with a pathogenic strain of the Vibrio cholerae bacteria. If it is not treated immediately, cholera can kill adults and children in a matter of hours. According to the World Health Organisation, up to 80 percent of cases can be treated successfully with oral rehydration salts.

The virus, which is endemic in Nepal, reportedly had a surge of cases in the Kathmandu Valley in August and September 2010. With peacekeeping troops from Nepal deployed to Haiti every six months, a new contingent arrived at the Mirebalais camp on Oct. 9, 12 and 16, 2010. These troops had spent three months training in the Kathmandu Valley.

According to the petition, Nepalese soldiers deployed as part of the MINUSTAH mission in Haiti were not tested for cholera prior to entering Haiti.

Ira Kurzban, an attorney at Kurzban, Kurzban, Weinger, Tetzeil & Pratt P.A. in Florida who is involved with the petition, said at a press conference at the U.N. Tuesday that a number of cholera carriers do not exhibit active symptoms which left room for error, as the U.N. only conducted tests on individuals who showed active symptoms.

According to the New York Times, the Cuban mission in Haiti has asked the U.S. to help finance a 30-million-dollar major hospital for specialists as part of a broader effort to remake the health system. Since the outbreak of cholera, the Cuban mission has treated more than 76,000 cases of the disease, with just 272 fatalities.

The chief of the Cuban medical mission, Dr. Lorenzo Somarriba, said they send people to the homes of the victims to educate them on the disease and provide them with tabs to clean the water – purification tablets that have been critical in a country where treated water is rare.

In a statement released by the spokesman for the U.S. Embassy, Jon Piechowski, he said while recovery in Haiti was a broad international effort, particularly to advance the health sector support to Haiti, they had not entered into any agreements with the Cubans.

Compensation

Concannon spoke of a victim who was one of the first to die from cholera on Oct. 22, 2010. The petitioner had been working in a rice field and drank from the canal that irrigates the field. Afterwards, he alerted his family about a boiling water sensation in his stomach and began to vomit before spending the night at home in excruciating pain.

The next morning he went to hospital, and in the afternoon he died. He left his wife and 12 children behind.

The petitioners, who hail from Mirebalais, St. Marc, Hinche and Port- au-Prince regions of Haiti, make up more than 5,000 individuals filing a claim including victims, parents of children and relatives of victims who have died.

They are requesting three things – 50,000 dollars per person or 100,000 dollars per person who died, an adequate nationwide response from the U.N. that includes better sanitation and clean water facilities to help prevent further cases, and a public apology.

“Our clients are challenging the institution to act consistently with what it knows to be true and just,” said Concannon.

Response

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed an independent panel of scientific experts to investigate the source of cholera in Haiti on Jan. 7, with a report released in May.

While the experts concluded that, “the evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that the source of the Haiti cholera outbreak was due to contamination of the Meille tributary of the Artibonite River, with a pathogen strain of current south Asian type Vibrio cholera as a result of human activity”, they didn’t attribute the outbreak to an individual.

At a press conference Tuesday, the secretary-general’s spokesperson said the U.N. peacekeeping mission as well as humanitarian development agencies were working with Haitian authorities to do everything possible to bring the spread of cholera under control.

He confirmed that the U.N. and MINUSTAH had received the letter and it would be looked at by the relevant part of the peacekeeping department.

“The independent panel of experts concluded that the Haiti cholera outbreak was caused by the confluence of circumstances as described in the report and was not the fault of or deliberate action of a group or individual person,” said the spokesperson addressing the U.N.’s response to the petition.

“The key focus for the U.N. has been since the outbreak and it remains the focus, to combat the outbreak and to help those who have suffered. That’s what the U.N. will continue to do.”

A MINUSTAH spokesperson emailed IPS and confirmed that the petition had been received and would follow the procedures to be transmitted.

She wrote, “MINUSTAH keeps and will remain committed in supporting all the efforts undertaken to fight the epidemic and its impact, in support of the government.”