Gender Equality is Everyone’s Agenda

The declaration of the HeForShe campaign by ASEAN marks the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is ready to join a world campaign where men support women. ASEAN in cooperation with UN Women, a world organization for women, officially released this campaign on Thursday (30/11) at the ASEAN Secretariat, Jakarta.

ASEAN Secretary-General Le Luong Minh stated that this campaign keeps everyone engaged in achieving gender equality through encouraging men to be agents of change and acting against inequalities that are detrimental to women. “We need fathers and mothers at home, male and female teachers and friends in schools, male and female writers in the media, as well as male and female decision makers in the public spheres to eliminate gender-based discrimination and break the glass glass, “Le said, adding that there is still a gender gap in school participation and government services in ASEAN.

While the Director of UN Women for Asia Pacific Miwa Kato conveyed the slow progress towards reaching the target of gender equality in 2025. “We even are not close to the target of what we want in 2025. It is not acceptable to next generations that we are serving for,” Miwa said in her speech. To that end, Miwa emphasizes the important role of the family in changing the mindset to achieve gender equality. Teachings that instill mutual respect in the smallest community unit between fathers and mothers, parents and children, brothers and sisters or otherwise, indirectly will also be taken to the environment outside the family.

Minister of Women Empowerment and Child Protection Prof. Dr. Yohana Yembise came up with more exposure to describe the challenge of changing patriarchal society. To that end, the ministry’s work agenda focuses on three priorities: fighting violence against women and children, fighting trafficking of women and children, and ending economic barriers to women’s empowerment.

After the opening, the event continued with a discussion featuring a number of panelists who delivered the topic around ASEAN HeForShe. The panelists are Vice Officers Official Committee for ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Richard K T Tan, President Director of Maybank Indonesia Taswin Zakaria, Canadian Ambassador to ASEAN Marie-Louise Hannan and The Executive Director of IBCWE Dini Widiastuti. Dini recalled the challenge of more than just a glass ceiling for women on a career in the world of work. “It’s not just a glass ceiling but like a labyrinth. Women need to take many ways to get to the highest level in a company, “said Dini.

The HeForShe campaign was launched by UN Women in 2014. Two years later Indonesia joined this campaign with the inauguration of President Joko Widodo as one of 10 heads of state who served as Impact Champion or HeForShe global ambassador.