• Gender
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• Conflict and emergencies
  • Conflict and emergencies
  • Displacement and refugees
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• Empowerment
• Gender-based violence
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  • Genital mutilation
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• Gender mainstreaming
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• Human rights
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  • Disability
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Gender

This preliminary study aims to uncover the impacts of the Global Economic Crisis 2008–2009 (GEC) on Indonesian women, especially on those who have been working in the industrial zones. The study confirms that the crisis affects men and women differently, within the current regime of industrial relations and the social construct of gender relations. Indeed, the GEC exposed women workers to less income and no social protection, which means women workers tend to reduce their food and other consumption and are more prone to domestic conflicts that lead to violence.

The author underlines the following findings:

• pressures to become migrant workers and enter prostitution are now part of desperate choices faced by women workers
• large numbers of women in the export-oriented industries have either lost their jobs or had their working hours reduced
• government response has been robust, though lacking in gender sensitivity
  
  

The study strongly argues for better social protection schemes and implementation in Indonesia, with strong focus on women and their participation in the economy. Furthermore, it believes the following suggestions should be carried out:

• enforcement of labor laws to protect women workers’ rights more effectively pay and union busting
• engagement of women’s groups and civil society through appropriate mechanisms to contribute into the Monitoring and Response Committee of the government
• expanding social protection, particularly unemployment insurance to workers in the informal sector
• filling the gaps in the monitoring effort: providing for effective monitoring of migrants, including stronger gender analysis and collection of gender disaggregated data
• designing any infrastructure or public works programs so as to allow for women’s employment
  

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