PPPA Minister Encourages Women's Equality In The Military

Minister of Women's Empowerment and Child Protection Bintang Puspayoga. ANTARA/ HO-Kemen PPPA

JAKARTA - The Minister of Women's Empowerment and Child Protection, Bintang Puspayoga, encourages women's equality in the military sector to be improved.

"The gender perspective in security has shown that the role of women in the TNI is not only intended for the state, but also for the community," said the PPPA Minister in a press release quoted by Antara, Thursday, April 21.

The Minister of PPPA believes that structural reforms towards gender equality can be realized by increasing the role of women, including providing opportunities for them to become leaders.

Her party said Indonesian women had made progress in gender mainstreaming in the military sector with the presence of female TNI soldiers consisting of the Women's Army Corps (KOWAD), the Women's Navy Corps (KOWAL), and the Women's Air Force (WARA).

Based on the results of the recapitulation of TNI soldiers in 2022, it is recorded that Indonesia has 444,133 TNI soldiers. However, there are only 8,850 female personnel in the TNI Women's Corps (WanTNI) or about two percent of the total TNI soldiers.

Therefore, the Minister of PPPA hopes that all parties can encourage the role of women to be able to make changes, provide innovation, inspiration and motivation in the military field.

"Although women's involvement is still very minimal in the military sector and gender construction still creates difficulties for women, women must still be given the same opportunities as men so that there will be no more discrimination, exclusion and restrictions for women," said the Minister of PPPA.

He added that the factor of gender construction affects women from the recruitment stage to military members by having a virginity test for them.

This raises a polemic because it is considered to violate their right to privacy and their physical and mental integrity.

"I appreciate the TNI's policy of abolishing the examination of virginity tests for female Corps candidates because this is not only gender-discriminatory but can also hurt and traumatize women," she said.

The abolition of the virginity test, according to Minister Bintang, is an effort to eliminate discrimination and violence against women and respect human rights.

"I hope the abolition of this virginity test can really be applied properly to all recruitment tests in the TNI," he said.

Her party welcomes the synergy and collaboration with TNI women to jointly create empowered women, protected children, advanced Indonesia.

The PPPA Minister also asked for the support of the TNI ranks to be able to participate in socializing and overseeing the implementation of the Sexual Violence Law (UU TPKS) to the public.