4th ASEAN+3 Youth Summit

15th AUN and 4th ASEAN+3 Educational Forum

Republic of Indonesia
Developing ASEAN+3 Economic Integrated Community: Issues on Gender Equality, Minority
Groups, and Persons with Disabilities
In spite of the existence of advances in recent years in ASEAN countries, the region continues to
face significant human right challenges. Southeast Asia suffers from human right violations that occur
within states and across the border. That being said, the most affected group of people in the case of
human right issues are women regarding the gender equality, minority groups, and persons with
disabilities. In the context of the poverty in Southeast Asia, women suffer more than men due to limited
access to education, housing, health, and financial services where they are often being discriminated and
becoming the object of violence. The situation is more acute for rural women, including those who belong
to minority groups. In larger scale, minority in several Southeast Asia countries are positioned as second
class people compared to the majority groups. On the case of persons with disabilities, poverty and
marginalization characterize the situation of the persons with disabilities in the region. They generally
have limited access to education, employment, housing, transportation, health services and recreation,
leading to their economic and social exclusion.
Recalling the importance of the issues, following the ASEAN Charter, ASEAN officials completed
negotiations on the terms of reference for the ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights
(AICHR), which was released in July 2009 and followed by the signing of ASEAN Human Rights
Declaration in 2012. The occurrences served as milestone to overcome issues regarding the gender
equality, minority groups, and persons with disabilities that are also covered by the declaration. Indonesia
has already played a positive role in setting up some key ASEAN human rights bodies since 2007.
Specific to the aforementioned issues, Indonesia has ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women and currently working on the implementation of the mandate by
adopting the value into policies and state constitutions. Under the new government, Indonesia aspires to
eradicate tension between minority and majority group. Not to mention Indonesia is also among countries
that ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and as a commitment Indonesia has
been amplifying the mandate by making protection mechanism for persons with disabilities rights
through constitutions that cover assurance of equal treatment and non-discrimination.
To advance the process of dealing with human rights issues that comprise gender equality, minority
groups, and persons with disabilities in ASEAN, Indonesia believes that the existence of single and
communally adopted framework regarding this problem should be addressed. Therefore, Indonesia
would like to propose several recommendations:
1. Conducting regular dialogue between ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human
Rights and individual member state
AICHR as a regional human rights body shall play a role in assisting member states to improve
the promotion and protection of human rights in their respective countries. By conducting
dialogue with member state, AICHR can identify human rights challenges on the ground, which
will give valuable information for AICHR to set up strategies in advancing and uphold human
rights in the region.
2. Advancing binding system and regulatory mechanism
AICHR should have the authority as regulator of human rights in the region. There should be
further discussion regarding sanction system to countries that violate the rules that protect
women, minority groups, and persons with disabilities.

Name
Country
Institution

: Qurrat Aynun Abu Ayub

: Republic of Indonesia
: Universitas Indonesia