Puan Agrees To Fight For Women's Rights With French Summit Participants

JAKARTA - DPR Speaker Puan Maharani together with 23 world women parliamentary chairmen participating in the World Women's Parliamentary Speaker of the World Conference or Women Speakers' Summit 2024 in France agreed to fight for women's rights.

The agreement is in the form of a joint declaration or joint statement in conclusion from the discussion in the Women Speakers' Summit 2024.

"We, the women chairmen at the National Parliament assembly gather in Paris to reaffirm our steadfast support for women's rights," said Puan in the Women Speakers' Summit 2024 in Paris, France, Thursday (7/3), as quoted by ANTARA from a written statement, Saturday, March 9.

The Women Speakers' Summit 2024 event, which was held at the de Lassay Hotel, Paris, since March 6, 2024, was chaired by the Chairman of the French National Assembly totaling Ya total Braun-Pivet. The Women Speakers' Summit is under the auspices of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) which is a parliamentary association of countries in the world.

Through the summit, Puan said that women's parliamentary chairmen want to encourage active and strongly committed parliamentary diplomacy. Puan also stated that he was ready to continue fighting for women's rights.

In the declaration, women's parliamentary chairmen stated that it has a responsibility to condemn and strongly condemn sexual violence against women at the time of conflict. This is because sexual violence is a violation of international law.

In the end, continued Puan, the national parliament, which is the representative of the state, is at the forefront of defending all women's rights and encouraging equality between women and men as well as its effectiveness through laws that have been drafted, passed, and supervised.

"By strengthening the rights of women and girls, humanity will move forward as a whole," he said.

During a discussion at the summit, Puan briefly highlighted the issue of women who are vulnerable to being victims in various conflicts around the world, one of which is in Gaza and Ukraine, many young women have lost learning due to school damage and the cessation of learning activities, to limited formal education in various areas experiencing internal conflicts such as Myanmar and Sudan.

A number of ideas made by Puan were also adopted at the declaration at the Women's Parliamentary Chair Summit, including in the struggle against gaps and discrimination that women continue to experience.

Puan assessed that the struggle against gaps and discrimination against women is a must in defending the values of equality and democracy around the world.

"We have the same priorities, including empowerment of all women, the elimination of all forms of violence, both in the family, sexual and gender-based violence, as well as discrimination in the fields of social, political, and economic life," said Puan asserted.

The women's parliamentary chairmen agreed that achieving gender equality and empowerment of all women in the world must continue to be fought for. This is because the principle of equality is one of the main priorities for the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (UN) as part of the 2030 Agenda.

The guarantee of equal rights, he said, is also a mandate from the 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and various other international legal products.

Women Speakers' Summit 2024 also emphasized the importance of equal rights to access education and work for women with disabilities.

"We also face new challenges, such as cyber violence, especially cyber harassment, with women as the first victims. We are determined to face all these challenges together," said Bung Karno's grandson.