Lilian Budianto, Jakarta – Hanifah, 23, carried her two-year-old daughter to join a crowd at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle here Saturday, as part of activities marking International Women's Day.

Holding her baby with her left hand, she waved a placard which read, "We can't afford to buy milk for our babies any more". The headscarf-clad woman stood silently, while hundreds of others took to the streets that rainy day, demanding better conditions for the Indonesia's women.

Hanifah, from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), said she used to feed her baby with unbranded condensed milk sold on the market for around Rp 5,000 a can. "It has been a year since I last fed Zahra with regular milk. Now with the soaring food prices, I can't afford it," said the mother of three young children while looking at her baby, Zahra.

The rally commenced around 10 a.m. with hundreds of women and a few men from different non-governmental organizations, led by the Women's Participation Institute (LP2).

Another large group of women from the Islamic-based PKS arrived later at the traffic circle and mingled with the first group.

The two groups raised similar issues, aimed generally at raising awareness of the urgent need for state institutions to empower women and adopt women-friendly policies.

Such policies should include allowing low-income-bracket families to buy staple food at affordable prices and receive free and appropriate health care access, they said.

The issue of food price hikes has affected women more than anyone else in a family, a volunteer for Women's Participation Institute, Endang Setiawati, told The Jakarta Post at the rally.

"A typical Indonesian family sees the father as the breadwinner and a mother as the homemaker," she said.

"When food prices are skyrocketing, often followed with the increase in prices of other daily needs, women are usually the first in the family to be pushed to the edge, and get forced to deal with the change with any means possible."

Nuraini, a social worker with the Indonesian Democratic Srikandi non-governmental organization, said women were usually the first victims of the cruelty of poverty, before it affects men.

She cited a typical example of a poor family who would prioritize sending their children to school, despite life's hardships.

"While a woman is the center of a family with the responsibility of raising children, many people have disregarded this role by charging women with less-favorable positions."

Nuraini said women often faced domestic violence and poor reproductive health care.

"How can we expect to become a nation with a bright future if we fail to respect women," she said. "The government must empower women if they hope to see a better future for the nation as a whole."

PKS women's affairs division chief Ledia Hanifa said more women's participation in politics was necessary to ensure the government gave priority to the enactment of policies favoring women.

"The government will neglect to consider the urgent need to empower women if there are not enough women in government and the House of Representatives," Ledia said during the rally.

Ledia hailed a recently endorsed law on political parties, which obliges all parties to set aside a 30 percent quota for women to contest seats in the House, but doubts it will create lasting change.

The electoral system, she said, did not oblige parties to put female candidates at the top of their candidate lists. As a result, female candidates often lost to male counterparts, Ledia said.

In the 2004 election, she said, 42 percent of PKS candidates nominated were female but only 6 percent (three women) managed to gain house seats.