It's not yet four in the morning but Nyak Nur Asiah, 50 years old, is already out of bed, getting everything ready for the day's business. In the cold morning air, she gathers together pieces of paper and leaves for wrapping up rice and portions of food.

At dawn, Nyak Asiah, as her friends call her, is ready to set out, hoping that she will make a small profit.

It is her daily routine to earn enough money for her family. Since her husband was killed in the 2004 tsunami, she is the only bread-winner for her two children. Her oldest is 20 years old but has not yet found a permanent job while the youngest sells things in a pesantren in Seulimem, Aceh Besar.

Nyak Asiah is not the only woman living below the poverty line; there are many others like her. Aceh is now the fourth poorest province in Indonesia, even though so much money has been pouring into Aceh.

Aceh's income has increased sixfold since 1999 and it now has the third largest budget in Indonesia, after East Kalimantan and Papua. Even so, 28.5 percent of the population are poor, which makes Aceh the fourth poorest in Indonesia.

Following the tsunami, Aceh became the region with the highest revenue. By June 2006, $4.8 billion had been received of the $8 billion pledged. Yet poverty has risen to 35 percent, the second highest in Indonesia after Papua. Such a discrepancy has existed in Aceh for many years and continues to be a problem to this very day. [Kompas, 9 February 2007]

Who suffers most?

Women have always been the ones to feel the impact of poverty. While there is no figure for the number of poor women in Aceh, according to the head of the Statistics Bureau for the whole province excluding Simeulu, there are about 5,900 women victims of the conflict who are living below the poverty line, not including victims of the tsunami, widows and others.

Dra Lailisma Sofyati, head of the Department for Women's Empowerment, said: "I think women feel the greatest impact". She says that poverty is identical with women's sufferings. They suffer as widows, having to shoulder the burden of finding an income for the family, while at the same time having to run the household.

Although earning an income is normally shared been husband and wife, most women stay at home to care for the house and look after the children, on top of which they must find an income to pay for the family's needs.

Lailisma says this doesn't mean that women are not allowed to go out to work, but what she notices these days is that women go to work because they are forced to do so because of economic circumstances. For all those women who lack the wherewithal, financially or because they lack the skills, the need to fend for the family is the burden they must bear.

Dra Lailisma says that it should be a matter of concern for everyone to help women in this situation, the majority of whom live in the villages.

"Then there's another problem. When women are given capital, they are unable to use it as such because they need to buy rice. Whatever capital they get is usually just a small amount as compared with their economic needs."

Ibu Yustinawati who is a trainer for an ILO programme, agrees that poverty is identical with women's sufferings. In poor families, the men only have to think about finding money for the family while the women must grapple with the problem of how to manage the pittance they get. For those who want to help their husbands to find an income for the family, they must do the housework first and then deal with other problems that may befall the family for which she is all too often blamed.

In Aceh, since the tsunami and the conflict, Yustinawati says that the number of poor people, especially women, has been increasing. This is not only because they have lost members of the family as well as property but also because they dont have the necessary skills to find a decent job.

"Many of them become washerwomen, street vendors, beggars, peasants or take other jobs with very low wages," she said. If they were given access or the opportunity to improve themselves or their welfare, then the problem of poverty could be overcome. But if this is lacking, then poverty will only intensify.

Another consequence of the poverty suffered by women is the increasing mortality of babies and children which is the result nutritional deficiencies in poorer families.

According to other sources, Acehnese women are not only poor in a material sense but they also lack knowledge and lack access to information.

Yustinawaty agrees, adding that their lack of access to information is the result of a culture which prioritises men in all aspects of life. For instance, when village meetings are held, its's only the men who attend, or in instances when women who are widows and therefore the head of the family attend, they find it difficult to take part because all the other participants are men. For those families not headed by a man, there is a lack of access to information and the women are marginalised socially.

According to research conducted by UNSYIAH and UNHABITAT, the percentage of women who take part in village meetings to discuss building houses is between 21-40 percent, while only 50 percent take an active part and express an opinion. As a result, women are not usually acknowledged as the house owner because house-ownership is based possession of a Kartu Keluarga (Family Card). In the pervading culture, women are rarely acknowledged as the head of family in the Kartu Keluarga.

And then, there is another challenge for women. If they are not well informed, its not because they are incapable but because they dont get the chance, said Sri Husaini Sofjan, a UNIFEM programme manager.

As things stand at present, women lack opportunities in many things – access to information, education and the chance to advance themselves. All this only adds to the number of women living in poverty. She was sure that there were other things hampering women's creativity. The lack of material goods stands in the way of being active in other spheres such as politics which is not only about joining political parties. Political participation is very important, for playing a role in budgeting and in obtaining scientific knowledge.

The fact that many women don't go to school, she said, was not because they were not clever enough but was also because of the lack of opportunities.

She said she had met many Acehnese women who were very vociferous in expressing criticism and who were much wiser that women holding high office, but it was simply because they had not been given the chance to get any education.

With reference to all the attention now being devoted to the victims of the tsunami, she said that that tragedy happened only two years ago, but many women who were victims of the conflict were living outside Banda Aceh and were not getting any attention at all. 'We should not focus only on the regions that were hit by the tsunami,' she said.

[Slightly abridged translation by TAPOL of an article in the Acehnese women's journal, Bunggong, Perempuan Menggugat (Bunggong, Women Accuse).]