Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Minister Bintang Puspayoga reiterated the important role of a mother in alleviating the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects in Indonesia. “If mothers in the past had contributed to the mission of Indonesia’s independence, mothers in the present times must exert equal might to alleviate and free this nation from the COVID-19 pandemic,” Puspayoga stated at the Mother’s Day commemoration event in Sleman District, Yogyakarta, on Wednesday.

The contribution of Indonesian mothers to Indonesia after the nation’s independence has become more important than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic, she emphasized.

Indonesian mothers have made sacrifices in several areas for the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic, either as health workers in hospitals, caregivers for their ill family members, and as teachers for their children confined by the online learning system at their homes, Puspayoga noted.

“With personal and collective might, Indonesian mothers have played their role in national development. Mothers have also partaken in the policy and decision-making processes and in advancing the five women empowerment and child protection priority programmes enacted by the president,” the minister remarked.

She stated that the 93rd Mother’s Day commemoration was centered at two locations that hosted the first Indonesian Women Congress in 1938: Ndalem Jayadipuran in Yogyakarta City and Mandala Bhakti Wanitatama Building in Sleman District, both in Yogyakarta Province.

The history of the Indonesian women’s movement and the first Indonesian Women Congress docudrama were featured during the Mother’s Day commemoration.

Apart from Puspayoga, former women’s empowerment and child protection minister Linda Gumelar, Yogyakarta Deputy Governor Paku Alam X, and Chairperson of the Indonesian Women Congress Giwo Rubianto Wiyogo also attended the commemoration event.

Source: Antara News