Yogyakarta, March 5th 2025─To commemorate International Women’s Day (IWD), the Student Council (Dewan Mahasiswa/Dema) of Fisipol UGM opened the Forum Selasar Fisipol. This time the forum took the title “Towards Safe and Inclusive Spaces for All Women”. This theme was chosen to dissect together the urgency of eliminating violence and discrimination in public spaces. This event presented various speakers ranging from the academic community of Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, IWD activists, to NGOs.
Rini Rindawati, a member of the Women Disability Crisis Center – SAPDA said that there is still frequent discrimination against groups with disabilities, especially women. She even revealed that there are still stigmas in society that see disability as a form of curse or karma. “There are still people with disabilities who are stigmatized that their shortcomings are a curse or karma from their parents,” she said.
Rini also mentioned that this kind of discrimination does not only occur in social life, but also in the context of facilities. She continues to push for the development of public facilities to be directed towards making disabilities comfortable. She also believes that developing disability-friendly facilities is then also beneficial for many groups including the elderly.
Jesse, an IWD activist, sees that there are still many cases of sexual violence in public spaces. Many struggles have been carried out, but have not yet shown the ideal changes expected. She realizes that it is not easy to change the culture (patriarchy) that is continuously built, it takes a lot of collective and massive efforts. “Maybe this is a culture that continues to be built and cannot be changed overnight,” she said.
Responding to the urgency of environmentally friendly facilities and the many cases of sexual violence, Arie, FCC Fisipol UGM also sees that although not perfect, Fisipol continues to develop and optimize disability-friendly facilities. In addition, FCC also continues to strive to handle cases of sexual violence related to the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences academic community, both those that occur off campus and on campus.
As the last speaker, Milda Longgeita Pinem, Lecturer at the Department of Social Development and Welfare, saw that many cases have been told and the creation of safe and inclusive spaces requires a long journey of reflection. She invited all of us to better interpret space beyond the physical context, but also in an existential context. She said that space will continue to reproduce power relations and separate those who are powerful and marginalized. “Space is never neutral, we need to transform the paradigm, we need to not normalize all forms of discrimination and violence that exist,” she said.