Women’s Organisations in this Study

‘Aisyiyah has supported village women to establish women’s groups, known as Balai Sakinah ‘Aisyiyah (BSA) at the grassroots level. Through BSA, which was created as a MAMPU partner, ‘Aisyiyah has developed a service model that includes strengthening women’s awareness of cervical cancer and breast cancer and supporting community health clinics (Puskesmas) to respond and treat heath conditions, particularly those related to reproductive health. It has supported group members through many different skills development and information sharing initiatives and also trained a subset of these members as cadres, or village-level organisers. These cadres are usually members of ‘Aisyiyah that are given additional training to facilitate activities and grow group membership. About a fifth of these cadres have been involved in village development planning meetings.   By the end of 2019, ‘Aisyiyah had worked with village women to establish 433 BSA at the grassroots level in 15 districts. The BSA have more than 8,000 members, of which over 1,000 women have been trained as cadres, or village-level organisers who are often members of the organisation that are given additional training to facilitate activities and grow group membership.

BaKTI has established ‘Constituent Groups’ to advocate for the rights of women and other vulnerable groups, and, in particular, reducing violence against women. These are multi-stakeholder forums in villages that include both men and women. These village groups also undertake advocacy in villages on development issues that members deem important to the village. Constituent Groups have been brought together with local parliamentarians through the Participatory Recess initiative in order to ensure community concerns are included in policy, legislation and regional development planning.

By the end of 2019, BaKTI had undertaken activities in 85 villages, in 7 districts across 5 provinces with MAMPU support.

BITRA was established in 1986, BITRA worked with MAMPU since 2014. During this partnership, BITRA organised Homeworker Groups, trained women on their rights, supported women’s livelihoods through credit unions, and undertaken advocacy for the recognition of homeworker rights.

In the Deli Serdang research village in North Sumatra and others in the district, BITRA(Indonesian Foundation for Rural Capacity Building) helped village women to establish women’s homeworker unions so that homeworkers could connect to other village union groups and collectively advocate for their rights. The provincial government now recognises these unions and homeworkers are also included on the list for government provided free healthcare from which they were previously excluded. BITRA also facilitated the establishment of a Credit Union for homeworkers and a ‘School’ for Increasing Women’s Homeworkers Capacity.

By the end of 2019, BITRA had undertaken activities in 4 districts and 31 villages in North Sumatra Province with 31 groups, more than 1700 women homeworkers, 29 Credit Unions and 6 micro-enterprises.

The consortium works to influence strategic community leaders—religious leaders, traditional leaders, schools and local governments—to change social and cultural norms that constrain women from accessing sexual and reproductive health services. With MAMPU, PERMAMPU established a grassroots network of women’s groups at the village level. These women’s groups have aimed to increase members’ economic capacity and access to government services.

The DAMAR Women’s Advocacy Institute has worked with its district partner FAKTA (the forum established by the Catholic Church to share health information) in Tanggamus District, Lampung Province to provide community education on the elimination of gender-based violence to men and women of different ages (teenage boys and girls, and married men and women). Training has been conducted with different groups separately. The DAMAR-FAKTA partnership made connections with village women in the Tanggamus research village via members of legacy state-corporatist organisations such as the PKK and Posyandu, which are predominantly made up of women.

PERMAMPU is a consortium of eight women’s organisations in eight provinces and 34 districts, and 224 villages in Sumatra (as of December 2019). The consortium works to influence strategic community leaders—religious leaders, traditional leaders, schools and local governments—to change social and cultural norms that constrain women from accessing sexual and reproductive health services. With MAMPU, PERMAMPU established a grassroots network of women’s groups at the village level. These women’s groups have aimed to increase members’ economic capacity and access to government services.

It has 112 member organisations in 32 provinces. With MAMPU, FPL partnered with other organisations to improve the implementation of the Integrated System for Handling Cases of Violence Against Women. By the end of 2019, 20 member organisations of FPL had undertaken activities with MAMPU support in 15 provinces, 31 districts and 102 villages.

FPL and its consortium partner YABIKU (the Village Women’s Care Foundation) has worked with existing state-corporatist women’s groups such as the PKK and KWT to organise women and undertake collective action to reduce domestic violence and change the customary sanctions for violence so as not to adversely affect women. It has also established a paralegal group that addresses cases of violence against women and children and has lobbied the village government to produce a new Village Regulation on Protecting Women and Children from Violence, although this remained in draft at the time of the research.

Together with its consortium partner in the Labuhan Batu District in North Sumatra, the SPI (Independent Women’s Union), FPL have supported village women through village-level women’s ‘independent union’ groups (village SPI). They have also supported villagers to establish mixed-gender multi stakeholder forums (Community Based Forums- LBK) in a number of villages in North Sumatra. Collaboration between SPI and the village government through the LBK successfully led to the enactment of Village Regulation No. 2/2018 on the Implementation of Protection of Women and Children Victims of Violence under the Village Law, and the promise of a fund allocation from the Village Fund.

With MAMPU, KAPAL Perempuan and its subnational partners have supported village women to form Women’s Schools (Sekolah Perempuan) in villages to organise women, share knowledge about women’s rights and to develop women’s leadership skills so that they can more actively participate in personal and public decision making. KAPAL also develops Gender Watch teams to monitor women’s access to social protection programs at the village, district and provincial levels.

Overall, KAPAL Perempuan works in 6 provinces, and 15 districts. It has supported village women to establish 26 Women’s School groups at the village level in MAMPU-supported Program Areas, 55 Women’s School groups at the village level in government supported Replication Areas, 137 Women’s School groups at the hamlet level in Program Areas. By the end of 2019, these Schools had 4478 members in Program Areas, 1989 members in Replication Areas, and 220 members of Youth Women’s Schools in Pangkep, Gresik, North Lombok and East Lombok.

Through its network of sub-national organisational partners—such as its local partner in Gresik District, East Java, KPS2K (Women’s Groups and Sources of Life organisation)— KAPAL Perempuan has supported village women to establish Women’s School (Sekolah Perempuan) groups to help empower poor women through education and skills development and strengthening the leadership capacity of its members. Members of theWomen’s Schools established in many villages in the Gresik District (and in every village in North Lombok), have over time gone on to participate in Musrenbangdes and special development planning meetings for women (Musrenbang Perempuan) in districts, garnering support from the district government to fund and support the scale up and replication of this initiative.

In Pangkajene and Islands District (Pangkep) in South Sulawesi Province, KAPAL Perempuanhas worked with its subnational partner YKPM (Community Empowerment and Assessment Foundation) to help village women establish Women’s Schools (Sekolah Perempuan) groups to support the empowerment of poor women through education, skills development and strengthening the leadership capacity of its members. Members of the Women’s School groups established in many villages in the Pangkep District have gone on to participate in special district development planning meetings for women (Musrenbang Perempuan) and have greater inputs into decision making. In Pangkep, the district government has provided funds to support the scale up and replication of this initiative.

With MAMPU, Migrant CAREhas supported the establishment multi-stakeholder organisations in villagesDESBUMI have provided village-based services for both female and male migrant workers before, during and after migration in a number of villages throughout Indonesia.

 In the Central Lombok research village in West Nusa Tenggara Province, Migrant CARE and its local partner the Panca Karsa Association helped villagers to establish a DESBUMI, which was formalised by the village government in 2015. From this group, the women’s-only group ‘La Tansa’ was also formed to support former female migrant workers and their families.

By the end of 2019, DESBUMI had been created in 5 provinces, involving 39 groups, 37 villages, 1098 members. The DESBUMI initiative was influential in the creation of the DESMIGRATIF (Productive Migrant Villages), a national government scheme which is currently being trialled.

Founded in 2000, PEKKA, through its branch structure and community organisers, has helped village women to establish women’s groups (Pekka unions) for female headed families, which together form a larger network of Pekka union members.

By the end of 2019, PEKKA had provided support to village women in 20 provinces, 87 districts, 1384 villages and to 3,000 Pekka groups. At the time this research was complete, there were 33514 active members of Pekka groups, organising some 68850 female heads of families.

Through PEKKA’s Akademi Paradigta program, women have been trained to become paralegals to help identify problems related to the administration of the population at the village level. Participants in Akademi Paradigta, particularly early on, have often but not always been drawn from women active in state-corporatist women’s organisations such as the PKK. Those women who complete the Akademi Paradigta have, among others, been supported to implement PEKKA’s Village Consultation and Information Service (Klinik Layanan Informasi dan Konsultasi, KLIK) program in their villages. The KLIK program, which was developed with MAMPU support, assists people to obtain vital records to increase their legibility as citizens, such as birth and marriage certificates, as well as identity and family cards. In turn, this provides people with access to a wide range of social services and the protection of their rights.

In the North Hulu Sungai research village in South Kalimantan Province, Pekka union groups were initially organised around social gatherings such as prayer meetings, and maternal early childhood education and health groups (Posyandu, Integrated Health Post). In the Bangkalan research village in East Java Province, KLIK services have also been provided, and in addition to focusing on the verification and registration of religious marriages through government processes, PEKKA and the village women’s Pekka group have also sought to support changing social norms related to child marriage.

In Central Lombok, Panca Karsa and Migrant CARE supported villagers to form a mixed-gender DESBUMI group. The DESBUMI and Panca Karsa also supported village women to establish the ‘La Tansa’ women’s group (an Arabic word meaning “Never Forget”), for migrant worker returnees and their families.

Yasanti has helped homeworkers to unionise in Bantul District, Yogyakarta Province and has worked with these women’s groups to successfully advocate to village and district authorities for formal recognition of these unions through regulations. The homeworker unions have been registered and together, these unions and Yasanti have worked with other villagers to develop new ratified regulations to support homeworkers in the research village.

More broadly, with MAMPU, Yasanti has supported village women to organise homeworkers into credit union groups and trains women to negotiate with their employers. By the end of 2019, MAMPU had supported Yasanti’s support for homeworkers in 2 provinces, 4 districts and 18 villages, working with 99 groups and 2412 women homeworkers.