Please note that all the stories here are about women in Aceh. The final exerpt is very important because it is from a study done very recently on life for the women of Aceh. Note that violence against women is not pervasive nor is it related to tsunami aid in any way.

Oxfam:
Mahmulia’s navy blue t-shirt is flecked with yellow and her hair is speckled with brown paint. “This is my second day of painting,” she giggles.
Oxfam is training Mahmulia and 36 other women to paint the new homes being built in their village, Beuring In, which was destroyed by the tsunami.

Before the tsunami, house painting was a male-dominated occupation. Women’s activities tended to center on working in the rice fields or running a street stall. The unprecedented scale of construction work in Beuring In means there’s high demand for skilled painters, which creates paid job opportunities for local women.

Ainy Fauziyah of Oxfam explains: “The women asked if they could paint and we said yes. In this area, they will paint 48 permanent houses built by Oxfam. Each group of two or three painters is paid 350,000 rupiah (US$35) by Oxfam.”

Today, Mahmulia is painting a living room ceiling, and some window and door frames, as a practice run before the project starts for real. Working in small groups, the women will be expected to paint one home a week.

With so many new houses under construction, they are likely to have work for a long time to come. Once the Oxfam homes are completed, Ainy plans to recommend the women to other house building agencies in the area.

For Oxfam, this project is about more than simply creating jobs. It is also about women becoming empowered to improve their lives and their community.

Oxfam:
At the end of August 2006, Oxfam celebrated an important milestone in its program in Aceh. Hundreds of people from the town of Sigli and surrounding villages attended a party marking the handover of Oxfam’s tsunami projects, which helped more than 15,000 survivors.

“It’s always good news when an aid organization is able to handover to its beneficiaries and complete its program,” says Pamela Young, Oxfam program manager. “We worked together with communities to plan activities, carry out training and implement projects. Communities helped to identify the people in greatest need. We also spent a lot of time consulting with male and female community representatives before projects started. And we kept everyone informed as work progressed.”

Two-thirds of Sigli, home to almost 14,000 people, was destroyed by the tsunami. With Oxfam’s support, the community rebuilt more than 90 houses in neighboring villages, constructing nearly 400 toilets and repairing the public health infrastructure. In addition, more than 100 bathing facilities were reopened, 250 wells were repaired, 40 incinerators were installed and a drainage system of more than 1,300 meters was built.

Nearly 400 cash grants were distributed to women and men to open street stalls, to start new businesses trading peanuts or collecting mussels, and to revitalize traditional crafts such as mat-weaving. Oxfam also trained groups of women and local NGOs to develop their business skills and boost their confidence as small-scale entrepreneurs.

Oxfam’s public health promotion team trained water and sanitation committees in three villages and five baraks (temporary barracks), provided advice on simple treatments for diarrhea, and established more than 140 hygiene clubs to educate children through puppet shows, sport and art. The health team also distributed bed nets and sprayed against mosquitoes to combat the threat of malaria and dengue fever.

The community of Sigli has now taken over responsibility for the various activities. Members of the Oxfam-trained water and sanitation committee have teamed up with public health authorities to organize community health awareness projects.

Noni Delfina, a team leader for the Oxfam livelihood program survived the tsunami but lost her older brother. Noni says she has seen many changes since she joined the program, especially among the women: “When they received the grants, they became more confident. They were happy, not only because of the money, but because it made them free to work and because people cared about them.”

Save the Children
Save the Children has worked in Indonesia’s Aceh province for over 30 years. Since the earthquake and tsunami of December 26, 2004, assistance has been provided to more than 276,000 survivors. The overall budget for the entire tsunami relief program in Aceh is U$156.6 million. Save the Children’s Aceh Program focuses on six sectors: Child Protection, Education, Livelihoods, Health, Food Security and Infrastructure, Construction and Engineering. The program’s objective is: “To support Acehnese children and their families to achieve safe, healthy and productive lives and to restore and strengthen communities in a manner that respects local culture.”

World Vision
Cut Laila Sinina has a warm welcoming smile for visitors. And, today, the 44-year-old has good reason to smile. After losing her parents and everything she owned in the December 2004 tsunami that ravaged Indonesia’s Aceh province, she is starting to rebuild her life, one stitch at a time.

Prior to the tsunami, Mother Cut (pronounced Choot), as she is known throughout the village, her husband Teuku Maimun, an agricultural supervisor, and their two young children lived in a large 10 bedroom house. They were the surrogate family of 34 students from remote villages who attended the local high school and boarded in their home. Her large brood fondly called her Mother Cut.

Fortunately, all but two of the students were on holidays back in their home villages when the tsunami struck. Although, she managed to save her children, she could not save her aged parents who were too old to flee from the oncoming sea. The boarders have not come back and her family recently moved into a two bedroom house constructed by World Vision.

“Even though it’s small, I am content,” Mother Cut says. “Before this, I had nothing.”

The lounge room is now crammed with sewing equipment as Mother Cut has channeled her energy into reforming the village sewing cooperative whose work was famous throughout the province prior to the tsunami. With the help of World Vision’s economic recovery program, the cooperative received 14 new sewing machines, an over locker and an embroidery machine in June 2005. Their first major contract was to sew hundreds of school uniforms for World Vision which donated them to local school children. With the profits, the cooperative was able to buy raw materials and now, it seems, they are keeping their village clothed.

Mother Chut can cut and sew three garments a day and manages to make a profit of USD$8 a day from this work. She is also training other tailors including teenage girls in the intricate art of Acehnese embroidery which involves placing gold thread into intricate designs and stitching it in place.

The cooperative recently applied for a license to export their garments and embroidery to other provinces and she hopes its members will be able to increase their profits by sending consignments to Indonesia’s third largest city, Medan, a 12 hour drive from their village. “Once we get this license, it will also serve as security if we want to loan money from the (government) department of industry to expand our business in the future,” she enthuses.

When Mother Cut was a young girl she started a Bachelor of Education majoring in English at one of the provincial capital’s most prestigious universities. Alas, after completing half the degree, she was suddenly plagued by inexplicable migraines and forced to discontinue her studies.

Upon returning to her village of Suak Timah, 230 kilometres southeast of the capital of Banda Aceh, she became interested in the local women’s cooperative and learned the intricate art of embroidery from her grandmother. The entrepreneurial Mother Cut soon found herself taking on a leadership role and touring exhibitions of their handicrafts throughout the province.

Prior to the tsunami, Mother Cut’s cooperative of 40 members from three villages exported their work to Malaysia. Sadly, 15 of their members did not survive that day. She now leads a 19 member cooperative, all from the village of Suak Timah.

The members hope that, one day soon, they will be able to export their work abroad again. Meanwhile, a portion of the small profits they make is being carefully put away for their children’s education.

World Vision: Still Standing Tall [pdf file] - Addressing Gender Issues in Banda Aceh
Despite this evidence presented in the national commission’s
report, at community level, people still strongly deny that domestic
violence is an occurrence that affects them and their families17.
Communities are reluctant to acknowledge and, as a consequence,
tackle violence. The only type of violence they have expressed a
willingness to discuss, albeit with a high degree of hesitation, is
that which they suffered as a result of the armed conflict. Between
2001 and 2005 more than 14,000 of the conflicts victims were
women18. Sadly, despite the conflict coming to an end, women
continue to fall victim to abuses within their communities.

Within traditional Acehnese culture there is a tendency to blame
women for any social wrongs, a factor which significantly contributes
to the communities denial of gender based violence19. Often when
a woman suffers some violent act the victim is accused of inciting
the violence, a tendency particularly prevalent with regard to cases
of sexual abuse. For example, in a recent incident, five people
raped a young high school student. Instead of portraying the young
woman as a victim of this violent act the local media presented
the woman as almost complicit in the commission of the crime20.
The media reported the facts of the case in a way which implied
the young woman had induced the men to perform the crime.
Sadly, this case is not an anomaly. In fact, there have been several
other cases where the perpetrators of such crimes have not been
condemned, yet the victim has been forced to suffer high moral
sanctions and social exclusion. [snip]

It is important to note that the women in Banda Aceh enjoy a
relatively unrestricted life in comparison to the lives of women in
some Middle East Islamic countries22. They are able to attend to
school and to study in universities; they can drive cars with many
even riding motorcycles. In Banda Aceh women are able to move
freely through the city and to be employed in a trade of their
choosing. Acehnese women have always been an important part of
the labour force being involved in employment activities that range
from working in the rice fields through to business, working as
government officials or in administration roles.

Nevertheless, the cultural codes of the province still impose upon
women a series of mandatory cultural norms which they must follow
and which can prevent their participation in civil life. These include
the compulsory use of a head-cover and clothing which covers arms,
neck and ears. In addition to a variety of other rules, women are
expected to conduct themselves in a morally irreproachable way.
Any breach of these regulations can result in a series of moral and
legal sanctions that range from insults in public through to admonitions,
fines, imprisonment and even flogging. According to the 2005 Annual
Report of the National Commission on Violence Against Women,
eight women were flogged in Aceh accused of indecency or immoral
acts23. In the city, the Wilayatul Hisbah - Islamic police- are entrusted
with supervising the fulfillment of these procedures. During the
armed conflict women faced violence the hope was that the peaceprocess
would bring an end to this. Some local NGOs have, however,
expressed concern that women are suffering from what they have
coined a “transference of violence”24. By this they mean that the
physical violence previously exercised by the groups involved in the
armed conflict, has been transferred into a psychological violence
being exercised by the Islamic police.

Acehnese women do not question the enforcement of the Islamic
dress code but rather accept it as a distinctive part of their culture
and religion with the majority women proud to wear traditional
dress. However, many do complain about the excessive social pressure
and inequity they still suffer. One extreme example of such social
pressure and discrimination is the instance where many community
members and religious leaders actually accused women of causing
the tsunami25. The tsunami was a punishment for the inappropriate
conduct of the women, in particular for those that sometimes do
not use a head-cover or dress in very tight clothes, according to
some community members and religious leaders. [snip]

At present the Aceh bill27 is under debate in the National
Parliament. The bill aims to grant a degree of autonomy to
the province of Aceh as part of the peace process.
Importantly, there is one specific article within this new
law which seeks to establish a quota system whereby at
least 30% of the members of the local political parties
must be women.

This quota is not something new in Indonesian law28. In
2003 the law on elections (Law 12/2003) established that
all the political parties women must nominate 30% of
candidates for the parliamentary elections29. Unfortunately,
this law had a minimal effect in the last national elections
of 2004. Despite the fact that 32% of the candidates were
female, only 11% achieved a seat in the parliament in
contrast to 89% of elected males30.

If the new Aceh bill is approved it has the potential to
instigate some important changes within the local political
local scene. Through generating more spaces for participation
by women there is the potential to also change the political
and legislative agenda of the province.