1 By: Sri Suwartiningsih
Abstract Women’s problems in Central Java are integral problems in Indonesia. They
may not face problems, if Indonesia itself doesn’t face ones. Women found themselves depriving, facing and having problems, mostly out of proverty. Therefore, in the
beginning of this paper, it will deliberately explain on poverty in Indonesia, the situation and condition, and especially those found in Central Java.
Then afterwards this paper will explain on women’s problems and methods to handle social problems or especially women’s problems assisted by social workers,
accurately and professionally. For such reason, in the end of this paper the writer is interested to propose for an idea of Social Worker Program in Higher
EducationUniversities, which is expected in the future time to help resolve social problems in Indonesia, particularly by professional women social workers
. Keywords : Women”s problems, Professionalism, Social Worker, Poverty,
1. Poverty and How to Overcome It.
Although Indonesia has celebrated its independence over half of century now, yet poor people and poverty problems remain still. It is now approximated that around
60 of poor people are those living in villages. Indeed, poverty is very much the picture of and part of the dynamic of the Indonesian society, especially in villages. As
reported in Kompas—a local newspaper August 2nd, 2006, it said that during dry season the number of poor families is increasing around 30, from the total raskin
rice given to poor families receivers in Central Java, that is around 1,8 millions families. Those areas in severe drought are: Rembang, Pati, Grobogan, Wonogiri,
Sragen, Purworejo, Demak, Pemalang . All are in the level of district and in Central
Java. For 2006 a number of 283,823 tons of raskin were distributed to 1,892,154 poor families. Similar notion was reported by Sugema Kompas, September 7th, 2006, that
there had been an increase of poor people in Indonesia, 17.75 higher from 13 months earlier, that was 15.97. Final data regarding the number of Indonesian
population has reached over 104 millions people in 2005. Most of which live under the poverty line, with less than 2 dollars to spend on daily basis Kompas, 2007. And
the majority of them live in the villages.
2 Kompas
August 1st, 2006 reported that many families in some villages in Sukatani
Sud-district, Purwakarta, West Java, had consumed cassavas instead of rice only for months since they could not afford to buy rice they need. Little money
that those farmers earned had also enforced them to harvest their cassavas early before their time. “In dry season like this, peasants like me do not have much to do.
The land is drying, therefore we get no income. It’s been hard for us to buy rice everyday,” told Mansur 45, a peasant in Leuwengnangkot village. Some of the
families in that village have to change their rice with cassavas in order to save their expenses. It also reported that 72 families in Pasirmunjul village had also consumed
cassavas, since they could not afford to buy rice. Poverty among Indonesian population has been worsening, particularly with
the phenomenon of swollen stomaches because of starvation in some villages in Indonesia. From January until November 2005, as many as 71,815 children under five
years old all over Indonesia were facing mal-nutrition. From the number, 232 died. The biggest number was found in West Java Province. From 12,028 cases, 94 of them
died. In west Nusa Tenggara NTB from 3,438 cases, 33 of them died; in East Nusa Tenggara
, from 13,969 cases, 52 of them also died; and in Riau from 56 cases, 4 of them died; whereas in Aceh NAD from 3,763 cases, 8 of them died. In Papua
province, from 1,155 cases, 3 of them died; in South Kalimantan from 56 cases, 4 of them died and in Central Kalimantan from 39 cases, 1 of them died; whereas, in
Maluku from 5 cases, 1 of them died Suara Pembaharuan, December 12
th
, 2005. Nationally, swollen stomach due to starvation attack 8 of children under the age of
five in Indonesia. Based on data obtained from BPS National Statistic Agency, the number of children, aged 0-4 years old, reached 20.87 millions in 2005. It means that
the number of children under the age of five suffering swollen stomaches due to starvation, recently, has reached an approximate number around 1.67 millions lives
indosiar.com; May, 2005. It has been a heart-breaking fact for Indonesia to learn, that regardless its widely popularity as being rich with natural resources, Indonesian
population are mostly living in starvation and poverty, instead. Recently, various programs and activities have been designed and
implemented to reduce poverty, particularly for the poor in the villages. However, the majority of poverty reduction policy has been designed solely by the central
government centralized, here is represented by BAPPENAS. BAPPENAS is designing a poverty reduction program funded by Indonesian National Budget and
debt from the World Bank and other multinational finance institutions. With such gratifying budget allocation, the central government runs centralized policies with
relief programs. Since 1970s under the economic growth policy until today, the central government has made villages the object of any poverty reduction projects in
Indonesia.
3 Based on the policy, the central government implements programs in the
forms of: 1 reducing the percentage of population living under poverty through credits giving, business security and means and facilities provision in villages, such as
Puskesmas Public Health, Inpres presidential supports, KUD a village
cooperative, and many more; 2 fulfiling supply of food for poor people through the distribution of free-sembako nine basic needs to the poor; 3 providing appropriate
health services by sending medical staffs to villages and providing the medicines needed through Puskesmas; 4 building more schools as part of giving better basic
educations’ means and facilities; 5 providing work opportunities through projects of government’s means and facilities repairment, provision of credits and money to start
businesses given as loans to the poor; 6 granting the poor people’s need for simple housing and sanitation; 7 supplying clean water and drinking water; also 8
distributing electricity, telecommunication medias and alike for villagers; and a lot more.
Programs mentioned above, however, faced failures more than its successes. KUT
—a credit given to support farmers, for an instance, is one of the government’s serial programs which fails. The program places Banks, Cooperatives, NGOs and
farmer groups only as credit-channelling-machines, whereas responsible for the credit itself is the Cooperative Department. In 1998, grant for KUT reached the number of
8.4 billions rupiah, 13 times higher than the former year. Farmers called it as a “six degrees mistake” for: 1 it didn’t empower the farmers; 2 the credit-channelling-
machines NGOs, Banks, Cooperatives were not selected selectively; 3 RDKK— Definitive Plan for Group’s Needs was made unplanned, and most of them were not
exist; 4 credits were given to anyone, even when they were not farmers, it was then not in target; 5 there was no monitoring in the distribution, receive and use of the
credits; 6 there were some leak in the fund-distribution, started from Cooperative Department until KUD. In September 2000, it was found that unpaid-credits for
farmers had reached 6.169 billions rupiah or 73.69 of credit realization. Since 2000, the KUT, considered as being a failure, was changed into a new program from the
government, that was Food Sovereignty Credit Program KKP. Its implementation was given solely to the banks, and the government only acted as subsidy giver in
elementary stage. It was a success in 2004 as targetted by the government, yet it faced a failure later on due to banks’ difficulty in channelling the credits to farmers and
farmers’ difficulty in paying the interests of the credits. From a sum of 2.3 quintillion rupiah, until March 2001, they only realized 3.85 billions rupiah or 1.57 billions
rupiah or 1.57. It resulted then in the scarcity of credits for farnmers in villages. Aside then KUT and KKP programs, there was also PPK—Programs for
Subdistricts Development. It focuses on reducing poverty in the level of village administration, as well as improving the work-performance of the local government
4 by giving financial supports and infrastructure provision. The point of the program is
a mutual planning, that involve the society, men and women, including the poor. The program was designed through discussion mechanism from sub-village level to
subdistrict level. The program implementation is carried out by one facilitator from the subdistrict administration, two facilitators from the village one man and one
woman in every village, and also with the assisstance of managing institution, such as UPK—A Unit for Finance Management that involving LMD—Village Institutions.
The program faces failures in some areas due to lack of planning and transparancy in the use and allocation of the fund to the villagers. Recently, they undergo some work-
renewal by improving work mechanism, either from the sponsor or assissted organizations.
Basically, there are two important factors which have caused the failure in the poverty reduction programs in Indonesia. Firstly, the poverty reduction programs
focus heavily on distributingchannelling social aids to the poor, among other are distribution of rice for the poor and social safety network JPS, both are for the poor.
Such effort will be unlikely solving the problem of poverty, since they are not empowering the people, instead they are causing growing dependency of the poor
people. Such “charity” of the government may even degrade the morality and attitude of the poor. Support program for the poor should have focused more on developing
the culture of productive economy and being able to free the people from their great permanent dependency. In other side, such social support programs may suffer
corruption along its distribution. It will be a lot useful when such supports are directly used to improve human resources issue, such as free-school fees in elementary and
secondary schools, as well as free-medical fees for health services given in puskesmas
. Second factor contributes towards the failure of the poverty reduction program is the many parties’ lack of understanding on the very root causes of the
poverty itself. This is why many of the existing development programs do not base themselves on poverty issues, which may have been caused by particularly diverse
and distinguished local causes. One of the victims of inaccurate poverty management is women. Especially,
those women who cannot strongly access resources, either natural or public. Below is an illumination on women’s problems, particularly in Central Java.
2. Women’s Problems in Central Java.
