Saraiyah, Women Leaders from West Nusa Tenggara

Strengthening women’s capacity and leadership in the community has changed the lives of women and their communities. Their role is not only to overcome poverty but also to change society’s perspective on women, gender equality and the view that fishers, farmers and heads of families which have only been attached to men have changed. Even the Regional Government has acknowledged that fishers are not only men but also women, so they also have the right to receive program assistance that has previously been given to men, such as boats or boat engines. At the beginning of the Gender Watch Program, women who did not get married immediately, women who lost their husbands and fathers were considered worthless because of the perspective that women only existed if there was a man beside them. Women who go to school outside their villages, especially on the islands and West Nusa Tenggara, will be accused of doing bad things because being away from their parents will make them “wild”. Therefore, it is very rare for girls to be sent to higher education other than for poverty reasons. They feel safer to immediately marry off their daughters even though they can afford the money. The experience of several female heads of families is that they feel the hardship of life because they are accused of looking for a man, because they work in trade outside their village to support their children and parents.

For married women, the life they experience is not safer. Their husbands were suspicious if they used facial powder to go shopping at the stall and thought they had been gone too long. They will experience insults and beatings because they are thought to be looking for another man. There was even a member of Sekolah Perempuan who was forced to go home while attending training because her husband threw stones at the house of the village facilitator who was thought to be leading his wife to misbehave because she was staying outside their village. Many women experience physical, verbal and sexual violence in domestic life, and their husbands even spend their wages from working abroad to marry other women. This is a process of impoverishment of women that is often not included in state policy analysis.

The critical awareness that is gradually getting stronger has brought changes for women to start building equality, although there are still some cases that cannot be avoided, such as divorce because they can no longer stand their husband’s behavior. Despite hard struggles, they began to share household work with their husbands, were able to do activities outside the home and even contributed to change in their communities. The accusation of spreading heretical teachings, which cannot be taken lightly in a religious community, can be resolved well. This proves that women’s ability to make changes is enormous. Currently, they have the ability to assess public services that are considered inadequate and provide concrete suggestions that can be enjoyed by all parties, both men and women, children and the elderly. They also have critical awareness with analyzes that are no less good than activists. When asked about obstacles by Evaluators from DFAT, they said that, “..the biggest obstacle is support from men and families. Are there plans to involve men in this program?” Some women spontaneously answered, “It’s no problem for us to work together, but don’t give men a big role because they will dominate us and we will be domesticated again like before.” They realize that women still have a long way to go towards equality, until the time comes when they can truly walk from the same starting point as men.