Indonesia’s manpower minister urges for gender equality at work

She made this call in an official statement which said, “”Our labour force participation rate shows that women’s participation is still below that of men. Moreover, many women are unemployed. This means we have a task to provide equal opportunities to men and women.”

She said that if women in workplaces had fewer opportunities than men, then it will create an environment that is not yet ready to support women’s presence in the workplace.

As such, she said it is crucial for companies and the environment to pay attention to the protection of women workers, especially in efforts to prevent violence, sexual harassment, and discrimination at the workplace.

In addition to increasing women’s participation in the workplace, the minister also urged businesses to support training initiatives aimed at increasing the capacity of Indonesia’s human resources such as internship programmes.

READ: Indonesia sets out to address labour issues in 2022

Fauziyah said that internship programmes will be able to future-proof workers’ competency and skill sets, thereby enabling them to compete and get accepted in the job market. “If their competence could be strengthened through the internship process, then the company can also get competent workers,” she said, according to Antara News.