Jakarta (ANTARA) – The government’s involvement in tackling gender discrimination is necessary, especially in terms of devising policies, to provide equal opportunities to women and men, Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati has said.
“Economic reformation policy and education policy in a nation have become very important to create equal opportunity,” she noted during the Women in Leadership webinar here on Monday.
To this end, the Indonesian Government has been providing free schooling to children up to 12 years to reduce the likelihood of a family with economic limitations having to choose between a girl or a boy to send to school, the minister said.
Social aid is also now mandatory for women family heads to guarantee its orderly utilization and ensure the aid is spent on what a family needs, she added.
“Women family heads tend to utilize social aid money for food or books for their children, so they do not use it to buy cigarettes and others,” Indrawati pointed out.
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Moreover, the Indonesian government’s active role in handling gender discrimination can also be observed from the state budget composition that is currently prioritizing gender equality, she said.
“We create gender tagging to show if our state budget has shown affirmation toward equality,” the minister explained.
Indonesia is one of the lucky nations because its government regulations are already paying attention to gender equality, the state treasurer opined.
There are still many advanced nations that do not care about this issue, she said.
For instance, they do not provide maternity leave, do not allow women to have land and building certificates, and or even open a bank account, she elaborated.
“It is things like these that become hurdles and the government’s policies should be able to open them,” Indrawati stressed.
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