Asian Breeze

No.95
No.

Online Newsletter

95March2023

KITAKYUSHU FORUM ON ASIAN WOMEN
Kitakyushu Otemachi Building 3F, Otemachi 11-4,
Kokurakita, Kitakkyushu, Fukuoka 803-0814 JAPAN
PHONE +81-93-583-3434 FAX +81-93-583-5195
E-mail: kfaw@kfaw.or.jp
URL: http://www.kfaw.or.jp

Kitakyushu Forum on Asian Women (KFAW) Web-based Newsletter

Contents
Protecting Youth from Online "Gender-Based Violence" in Indonesia- SUZUKI Mari (Vice President, Executive Secretary, Asian Community Center 21 (ACC21)) ................................ 1

Creating opportunities for underprivileged people- TSURU Saki (Co-founder, ‘Musubite’, NPO) .......................................................................................................... 4

With the theme "No one will be left behind in Asia", we sharewith you two reports from Indonesia and India.
This year is a mid-term evaluation of national initiative for
Sustainable Development Goals.
In this issue, we focus on Asia in particular and invite you tojoin us in considering ways to achieve SDG 1 (End Poverty) andSDG 5 (Achieve Gender Equality) through activities in two countries to ensure that no one is left
behind.

Protecting Youth from Online "Gender-Based Violence" in Indonesia- SUZUKI Mari (Vice President, Executive Secretary, Asian Community Center 21(ACC21))
The Asian Community Trust (ACT) wasestablished in 1979 as the first fund-raising typeof charitable trust in Japan to build a “Bridge ofMutual Help and Resource Sharing” in civilsocieties across Asia. A charitable trust is asystem whereby donations by individuals andcorporations are placed in trust with a trust bankused for public benefit activities. Over the past
42 years, 28 special funds have been establishedwithin ACT, and have provided grants for morethan 800 projects in a wide range of fields,
including education, health care, agriculture,
cultural preservation, and support forinternational students studying in Japan in 15

or banks, and the investment profit or principal iscountries and regions, conducted by private non-1

Asian Breeze

No.95

Online Newsletter

profit organizations (NGOs).
The selection process focuses on whether
proposed projects are with gender perspective
and designed to promote women's active andinitiative participation. Today, projects thatincorporate these perspectives are being
implemented in various countries in such areas
as community organizing, education, training,and microfinance (micro-loans and savings
activities aimed at improving livelihoods).
in Bengkulu Province on the west coast of
Sumatra because we learned that the situation has
rapidly worsened with the spread of the Covid19 outbreak. According to the National
Commission on Violence against Women inIndonesia (Komnas Perempuan), the number ofgender-based
violence
cases
increased
dramatically from 259,150 (in 2016) to 431,471(in 2019), with Internet based violence

As the secretariat of ACT, ACC21, of which I
am a staff member, visits sites in urban, rural,coastal, and mountainous areas of Asiancountries, discusses with local people and localorganizations, and reports the progress andresults of our projects to our supporters in Japan.
In this newsletter, I would like to introduce a casestudy of Indonesia to discuss what women arefacing in Asia during the Covid-19 catastrophe.

(including
pornographic
photo/videodistribution) in particular, increased to 510 cases(in 2020) from 126 cases (in 2019).
In the city of Bengkulu on the west coast of
Sumatra (population of approximately 372,000,
including 184,000 women), online classes began
in the absence of social services to handle suchcases, putting youth at risk and revealing thefollowing problems:

About 10 years ago, when I visited Nias Islandand Medan in northern part of Sumatra, local
NGOs and young people told me some stories
which pulled my attention. At that time, people
in rural areas did not have access to internet withreasonable price, but young people werebeginning to become fascinated with the world
through social networking services, andincidents of sexual violence and threats between
young men and women who met through SNS
were on the rise. However, it was difficult forfamilies and schools to immediately grasp thesituation and take actions.
Nearly 10 years later in 2021, ACT started tosupport a project entitled "Protection of youth
from online gender-based violence "- Gender-based violence has increased
dramatically with the spread of Covid-19.
- Teens are unaware of the forms and types ofgender-based violence, the impact on victims,
where to get information, and where incidents
occur.
- There are no service agencies in the city todeal with it, and there is no policy to regulate it.
- There are service organizations for women(Implementing Organization: PUPA Foundation)and child victims of violence, but those are not2

Asian Breeze

No.95

Online Newsletter

prepared to address the needs of the victims in

but the school did not know how to report the

any aspect of its knowledge, service structure, orpolicies.

incident and was hesitant to address it within theschool through the judicial process, preferring toresolve it internally. Therefore, in addition tocampaigns through social networking sites andworkshops for young people to create content for
information dissemination, we are developing
campaigns such as "Connect, Speak Up, Donate"and "Don't Click Right Away".
In Indonesia, Law No. 12 of 2022 on the
Crime of Sexual Violence was promulgated on
May 19, 2010, specifying that "sexual violence

In this project, the following activities arebeing undertaken in cooperation with four juniorhigh schools and high schools in the city, thelocal government, police, and local governmentorganizations and NGOs.
- Raise the awareness and understanding of theyouth so that they will also promote thecampaign on this issue.
- Share with those who know or haveexperienced gender-based violence about thecampaign.
- Encourage school groups involved in violence
prevention and response to expand the scope ofthe campaign to include gender-based violence.
- Ensure that the follow-up plan for this projectis regulated in policies at the school level and atwith electronic devices (KSBE)" is a form of
criminal act of sexual violence. Under thisproject, PUPA collaborated with the district andthe city, schools, police, legal professionals, andpsychologists to develop MELA LAPOR, asystem for consultation and filing complaints.
The system can be used as a smartphone
application, and 15 cases have already been filed
during the trial period. Once a complaint is filed,services including legal assistance by partner
institutions will be made available.

the Bengkulu city level, in the form of circulars,
mayoral/governor regulations, and Bengkulu
provincial regulations.
During the first year of the project, school
personnel understood some cases of genderbased violence, but there were a certain numberof people who misunderstood it as part of a joke
or a fad/play. There was a case reported to aschool teacher that a friend had been victimized,

3

Asian Breeze

No.95

Online Newsletter

Creating opportunities for underprivileged people- TSURU Saki (Co-founder, ‘Musubite’, NPO)
Hello everyone, I am Saki Tsuru, co-founderof ‘Musubite’ NPO. When I was a student, I
travelled to India as a backpacker and saw
poverty problems, which inspired me to create asociety where every person can achieve what
they want to do, regardless of their birthbackground. In 2019, I therefore founded acompany in India that aims to empower womenand is currently working to support education in
impoverished areas. In this article, I would liketo write about my initiatives in employment andeducation in India.
I could not forget the poverty issues I saw, andafter working in Japan for a few years, I returned

I thought that if I could create job
opportunities for women who wanted to create abetter future for their children, and if they could
earn a steady income, these children could
continue their education and break the cycle ofpoverty. In this spirit, I set up a cleaning
company to train them to become professional
housekeepers. We faced many difficulties insetting up this business. Many of the women
were illiterate and had difficulty remembering
the types of detergents and tools used in theservice. We also received a lot of complaints
from clients because we could not clean every
corner of the house. However, after about three
years of providing cleaning services, the womenchanged for the positive. I created anto India to explore how the poverty issues inIndia could be solved. I visited various places inIndia and spoke to many people, from children toadults. Among them, I was impressed by thefeelings of mothers living in the slums of Delhi,
India's capital, their families were poor and they
dropped out of primary school and came to thecities to work as migrants. Lacking educationand skills, they have no access to stable
employment and work as daily labors on
construction sites or as domestic help. They live
a hard life with low wages and no day off.
Despite these conditions, she says: "I do notmind spending my whole life in this slum, but I
don't want my children to live in such poverty. I
want them to get a good education and become
independent adults," she said with tears in her

environment where everyone was highly
motivated to work, for example by giving awards
to members, who received high ratings from
customers. As a result, some members werepromoted to supervisors and their salaries
increased by about 1.5 times. This had asignificant impact on the lives of these women,
who are now able to send their children to private
schools and save money.

eyes. I felt that these women could achieve their
aspirations if only they had the chance, so I

As the project finally got on the right track

decided to give it to them.
4Asian Breeze

No.95

Online Newsletter

after overcoming various difficulties, neweducation, initially in the state of Bihar, with theproblems became apparent. Some women had
passed our company's recruitment process andgot hired but were unable to work because they
could not communicate with or convince theirfamilies of their desire to work. Others joined thecompany but dropped out soon after. Was it theirfault they could not convey their desire well or
continue working? It seemed to me that theability to grab opportunities and to persist was

mission of “creating opportunities for those whodon’t have them”.
Bihar is considered the poorest state in India,
with a female literacy rate of only 60%, thelowest in the country. It also has a secondary
school dropout rate of over 30%, making it oneof India's most drop-out states. When we went tothese villages in Bihar and talked to adults andchildren, we found that there were challenges inalso a skill that their upbringing and education
had given them. During the recruitment process,I also felt that there was a limit to the scale of thepoverty problem that could be tackled of a small
company. More than 30 people applied for aposition, so I thought about what I could do tobreak the cycle of poverty for more people.

education. Many children could not do simple
arithmetic or read and write, even in upperprimary school, because the teachers did notcome to school or did not teach them until they
understood. Although there are people in thevillage who are committed to solving theproblems of education, there were few educatedadults in the village, and it was difficult to recruit
teachers. So, with the help of social activists inthe village, we recruited teachers from adjacentvillages and started a free after-school
programme. We begin by providing daily classes
to teach basic literacy and math skills. To address
the problem of teacher shortages, we introduced
projectors into the village after-school schools
and connected them online with teachers living
in urban areas to create opportunities for higherlevel classes and career and moral education.
Today, we have been able to provide educational

Though these experiences, I decided tosupport education, because I wanted to create
opportunities for everyone to strive, no matter
what background they were born into. Despite
various struggles, I decided to change mybusiness of cleaning services. In addition, when
we changed our business, the members whoworked with us were recognized for the highquality of service they had learnt from us, and allof them were able to find higher earningpositions with regular customers, as cleaners forJapanese companies or as employees of cleaning
companies.

opportunities for more than 270 children.
Not only in Bihar, but there are still many
children who do not have the opportunity to learn
due to such low levels of education. Furthermore,to achieve our mission of " Reducing the numberof people to none who are unable to make aneffort due to the external factors and are forced
to live under various challenges in impoverishedareas", we need to work on a complex link

Since last year, as co-founder of the non-profit
organization ‘Musubite’, I have been supporting

between various social issues, not only education.

5Asian Breeze

No.95

Online Newsletter

We will continue to work towards achieving
our mission by engaging with local people anddoing whatever we can.

Thank you for reading. Any comments and suggestions are welcome.
Email us!
info@kfaw.or.jp

6