Mother's Day is a day which celebrates life, continuous giving and a stream of unconditional love. It is a day when we celebrate the tremendous value of Mother who has given us life and nurtured us to becoming the man or woman we are today. Most mothers have an undying and unconditional love for their children in good times and in bad times, never expected anything in return. Her traditional role, as the nurturer and caretaker has existed since the beginning of time. But as time clocks in, her role has evolved to include either the primary or co-breadwinners of their families.
As in the case with my Mum, she helped to support my father's meager income to finance their kids for college. Most mothers in my village have such role due to their poor economics background. Mostly, they are working at the nearby garment factories and the tofu home industries or any other unskilled labors with only minimum basic salary. Limited education due to financial constraints denied them to land in jobs with better payment. Their husband suffer the same fate of registering into menial jobs only to live hand to mouth. Their economic advancement is having snail like pace if anything.
Impoverishment thus results in their younger generation to receive inadequate education as the cost of getting good education keeps skyrocketing. The poor could not afford to go for college due to its growing commercialization. Consequently, these younger generation go on to repeat the same cycle as their parents did. They could only finish their high school. With such qualification, the only option available is working as with their parents in factories with minimum pay, and the vicious cycle is repeated.
Mostly, they are women that dominate the lowest skilled jobs, working in precarious, insecure, and exploited jobs, such as domestic helpers particularly migrant workers or in the manufacturing industries (mostly garment, textile and electronics).These women are already doing it all — working hard, providing, parenting, and care-giving. Tragically, their families can’t prosper, and that’s weighing the Indonesian economy down.
When women are poor, their rights are in grave danger. They would face obstacles that may be extraordinarily difficult to overcome. This results in deprivation in their own lives and losses for the broader society and economy, as women's productivity is well known as one of the greatest generators of economic dynamism.
Statistics shows that women make up half of the world's population and yet represent a staggering 70% of the world's poor. For the millions of women living in poverty, their lives are a litany of injustice, discrimination and obstacles that get in the way of achieving their basic needs of good health, safe childbirth, education and employment. This includes Indonesia in which regional gender biased bylaws are targeting women, giving a silent stamp for women as less worthy than men. Thus, it worsens the condition of women in general and in return poverty remains in their circle. The sequence of discrimination that a woman may suffer during her entire life is unacceptable but it takes place almost all around the world.
For this reason, on Mother's Day, we have to reflect on this vital issue that direly affects women' life. We have to be aware that we live in a world in which women living in poverty face gross inequalities and injustice from birth to death from poor education to vulnerable and low pay employment. Therefore, women's empowerment is imperative, specifically for housewives so that they become economically independent to end women’s poverty and providing better economic opportunities.
The best policy solutions to address women’s poverty must combine a range of decent employment opportunities with a network of social services that support healthy families, such as quality health care, child care, and housing support. It is equally vital as well to stop gender biased regional bylaws which castrate women's basic rights and liberties. Government should also actively engage to elevate the condition of women by providing regulations which support women empowerment such as by supporting banking laws which provide greater access for women to start their independent business as in Grameen Bank Program in Bangladesh that makes small loans to the impoverished without requiring collateral.
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