Unseen Faces, Unheard Voices

Rare finds It is quite rare to find women activists working on women workers' issues in the oil palm plantations of Indonesia. They are generally part of the administration but very few are involved in organizing workers. Generally, NGOs organizing labour are very focused on broad issues like wages, land grabbing and unfair treatment by capitalists and agribusinesses. The focus on women is minimal as a target group for organizing and considered for supplementary activities to support the men who are being organized.  They may have be aware of gender inequality but this does not extend to efforts to implement gender mainstreaming in the programmes and campaigns. There is still an obvious gap and women are not benefiting from programmes. A higher level of commitment and focus is required to ensure women benefit from labour organizing. Solidarity As a feminist researcher working on social justice issues affecting women in the oil palm industry, I want to establ...