TEMPO.CO, Surabaya - The Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati perceived women empowerment could boost the economic value as well as the economic resilience. Thus, she said, the government was currently striving to build the gender equality.

“[Gender equality] should start since early childhood education (PAUD),” said Sri Mulyani in a seminar themed ‘Women Participation for Economic Inclusiveness’ at Sheraton Hotel, Surabaya, Thursday, August 2.

The government also demanded to alleviate poverty among the low-income family. The financial issue, Sri added, commonly hampered children to have the proper education. “Especially girls.”

The government established a program of Keluarga Harapan to anticipate the matters. A total of ten million families were registered in the program this year. Sri Mulyani said the figure would later be increased.

“This [program] aims to assure that the family has no excuse to not provide schools for their children because of poverty considering girls are usually not allowed to go to school, because they prioritize the boys,” Sri Mulyani explained.

According to Sri Mulyani, the community, especially women, should be given a chance to attend the school, have access to health, and get assurance to be employed. The gender quality issue, she added, was strongly relevant, not only in Indonesia but also in the whole world.

“The gender equality issue also occurs in developed countries, not only in developing countries,” she said.

Sri Mulyani mentioned, the report of the 2017 World Economic Forum noted that the issue of gender equality required 200 years to be settled, which was a long time journey. Moreover, the development is still dull.

Meanwhile, the World Bank’s data showed the gender inequality lowered the economic value by 15 percent on average. “Or in this case, the decrease in economic value is caused by entrepreneurship gap,” Sri Mulyani said.

CAESAR AKBAR