Jakarta – The National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) is seeking assistance from the Presidential Working Unit for the Implementation of Pancasila as the State Ideology (UKP-PIP) in the fight against discrimination against women.
The commission sees the working unit as a new instrument to advocate for the revocation of 421 discriminative regional policies imposed in regions across the country.
"We expect President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo will allow us to meet with the presidential working unit to discuss these discriminative policies," Komnas Perempuan chairwoman Azriana said on Monday.
The number of discriminative regional policies has drastically increased in the past six years from 154 in 2010 to 421 in 2016. These policies range from bylaws issued by governors and regents to circulars issued by village heads.
The commission's concern over the growing number of discriminative policies has increased after the Constitutional Court ruled in April in favor of a judicial review that demanded the Home Ministry be stripped of its authority to revoke regional bylaws.
"The only way to revoke bylaws now is through the Supreme Court. The problem is that the Court only examines the available documents, so we don't have a chance to actively participate in the hearing process," Azriana said. (yon)