“The country does not use a gender-responsive perspective to address the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s one problem among many others in this country’s COVID-19 response,” says Asfinawati, chairman of Indonesia Legal Aid Foundation. The pandemic has shown the severity of how women are treated unfairly by highlighting several fault lines.
The first fault line has to do with health care. During a time like this, the swamped hospitals are setting higher prices for maternal care and women who tested positive are denied labor services. Second, social restrictions lead to women staying with abusive partners.
Some abusers are even excused, with the reasoning that there are not enough testing facilities to move on with the accusation. Lastly, the government has put off the sexual violence prevention bill and the domestic worker protection bill, two very important bills for women. “The state needs to include women in its handling of the COVID-19 crisis,”