KAPAL Perempuan aims to build a robust women’s movement for gender equality through developing a network of social activists and female leaders.

Ending child marriage

KAPAL Perempuan have long worked with networks of women’s groups to gather data related to gender equality. With support from EM2030, KAPAL Perempuan has focused specifically on raising the national legal age of marriage for girls, running campaigns at the local level to influence decisionmakers and engaging directly with policymakers in the national government using qualitative and quantitative data to tell the stories of child marriage survivors.

In response to collective advocacy from KAPAL and partners, the Indonesian parliament voted overwhelmingly to raise the legal age of marriage for girls from 16 to 19 years (to match the legal age of marriage for boys). This is a huge legal win for teenage girls, allowing them to continue secondary education, for example, and to have greater control over their lives.

Data is the core of the struggle,” says Misiyah Misiyah, Director of KAPAL Perempuan. “With no data, we end up in a futile argument. But when we have solid data about gender issues, either quantitative or qualitative, we can use that as a tool to push government to give their protection to women.