Aksi!

This book is based on the documentation of the Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue activities initiated by Aksi! for gender, social, and ecological justice during 2023- 2024 period in eight cities in Indonesia, namely Ambon, Balige, Bengkulu, Denpasar, Jakarta, Kupang, Makassar, and Purwokerto.

This book presents an in-depth reflection on the issue of economic and gender inequality and the poverty feminization in Indonesia, as experienced and voiced by grassroots women from various aspect of life. The dialogue also involves policy makers, activists, community leaders, and the private sector in order to listen to and discuss various issues faced by women, from the seizure of natural resources, the gap in access to basic services, to gender bias in law and policy.

This proceeding consists of three main parts. The first part contains the expressions and experiences of grassroots women regarding gender and economic inequality in various aspect of life. The second part presents the views of decision makers and stakeholders on the issues. And the third part is summarizing the reflections from the ongoing dialogues, including the follow-up and recommendations resulted.

The common thread of this book is the collective struggle to bring about gender, social, and ecological justice through participatory and collaborative approaches. The dialogues highlight the importance of recognizing women roles in the society, resolving structural issues that perpetuate poverty, and the need for more gender- responsive policies

Since the New Order regime until now, Indonesia’s economic development is based on foreign investment, foreign debt, and international trade continues to push the extraction and exploitation of natural and human resources. This has caused economic disparities that encourage the poverty feminization throughout Indonesia. This means that more and more women are becoming poor and experiencing gender- based discrimination and violence.

The feminization of poverty due to structural economic inequality often does not get public attention because the circulation of information on this issue is not many. There needs for a lot of public attention and discussion about this poverty feminization phenomenon, not only from women’s organizations and civil society organizations but also through journalists’ reporting. Currently, many women journalists are needed who not only committed to fighting for women’s rights but also have the skills to analyse poverty in Indonesia, conduct investigations, gather facts or report news to the public with a feminist perspective.

Therefore, Aksi! for gender, social and ecological justice together with an Indonesian women’s media, namely konde.co, conducted training of feminist journalism for women journalists. The purpose of this training is for women journalists to strengthen their understanding of the reality of development in Indonesia, existing economic inequality, and the phenomenon of the poverty feminization using feminist analysis. In addition, their skills in feminist journalism, especially in covering issues related to poverty feminization, have increased. These two things, namely strengthening understanding and improving skills, are expected to build strong solidarity among the participants, women journalists and activists, and a commitment to be a voice for women who live in poor and marginalized conditions, with the desire to contribute to the efforts of women who are caught in the poverty feminization to achieve an overall better and more just life.

This proceeding describes the process of training feminist journalism of for 12 women journalists from 9 cities, and 8 women activists from 5 cities in Indonesia. The preparation of the proceedings is based on the flow of the Training Journalism Guidelines that were prepared and used for training and training minutes.

The book entitled “Voices of Marginalized Women, a collection of Reportage from Women’s and Marginalized Perspectives” was written after the training of journalistic on economic inequality and gender injustice held on 27-29 October 2024 organized by Aksi! for gender, social, and ecological justice and Konde.co.

This book presents reports on economic inequality that drives the poverty feminization, namely that more and more women are becoming poor and at the same time facing gender injustice. So far, coverage of the poverty feminization due to structural economic inequality has not received much public attention because more writers are interested in writing about women’s lifestyles than the problems of poor women, the problem of women’s inequality that is ignored by the state.

This book is a compilation of coverage by journalists and a number of women activists from various regions in Indonesia to provide a critical perspective that the rights, interests and views of poor women must be fought for in the midst of development that impoverishes them.