Once I have got a valuable opportunity to attend a discussion session at Yayasan Rahima (Rahima Foundation) in Jakarta. The speakers were from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, who delivered "Women's Human Rights in Islam" as theme of the seminar. This was delivered based on their experiences and the implementations so far in their countries.
There was something that interests me when the panelist from Afghanistan answered one of the discussion's questions: which step is more urgent to do in Afghanistan related to the cases of violence against women occurring in that country, is it eliminating violence against women or promoting education for women?
She claimed that the most urgent thing to implement- related to the status of women in Afghanistan is to achieve and to promote education for the women. According to her, all acts of violence against women could be overcome if women have gained knowledge and know their rights, including the rights to free from violence.
For me, although in some cases there are some differences between the situations of women in Afghanistan and in Indonesia, but from the statement above, I absolutely agree with her point of view, and I believe that we, in Indonesia, have also very similar urgency to be put into action. In this case, it is to considering and pursuing alternative education for women.
Why is educational alternative?Â
There are at least three reasons why alternative education for women is very important to carry out, especially in Indonesia nowadays:
Firstly, because of the gender factor, women's access to education is very limited.
Secondly, alternative education is very important because the education curriculum in Indonesia today is still gender bias.
Thirdly, formal education in Indonesia is not currently fulfilling the women's specific needs, such as understanding the rights of women and the reproductive rights, which are free from gender-based violence.
In addition, it does not accommodate the various problems faced by women, such as trafficking, domestic violence, discrimination of women in the workplace, and others.
