Potential of Women Fisherman in Indonesia Frontier

Rahmah Daniah

and Fajar Apriani

Department of International Relations, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Mulawarman

Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Mulawarman

Keywords: Women fisherman, frontier, key informant, blue economy, gender equality.

Abstract: The consequences of the insular location, the greatest size and the maritime form of Indonesia caused the

survival pattern of the people offshore mostly as fisherman. But the problems that arise from the definition of

fisherman tend to be interpreted as people who catch fish, while women who play a role mostly as fish cleaners

to be consumed at home or sell it in markets, which are not directly involved in fishing activities, are not taken

into account, sometimes not receiving wages in the home business. They are only considered to accompany

even just relying her life to her fishing husband. Then the contribution of women fisherman is considered

non-existent and adversely affecting women fishermen. This paper describes how the potential of fisherman

in the concept of Indonesia’s frontier to see non-physical potential in maintaining the security of border

outside the country. This research is a qualitative research by collecting data from literature study through

literature review from various scientific articles. Validity and reliability of data is done by reference

triangulation. This paper aims to explain the ability and potential of fisherman in maintaining and integrating

Indonesian frontier which has not been taken into account of their potential as a key informant and has a

significant role in the blue economy. So that gender equality and empowerment of women fishermen in

fisheries development in Indonesia is important.

1 INTRODUCTION

Indonesia as an insular location has contact with other

countries through its fairly open and strategic sea

lane, which occupies a cross position between the

Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean and a fairly solid

trade crossing between the Asian continent and the

Australian continent, resulting in various advantages

and disadvantages emerging simultaneously as a

consequence. The strategic value of the insular

location is usually used for developed countries by

making international ports as an international trade

route into one of the foreign exchange eranings for

the country, but this potential drains ‘capital’ for

Indonesia so that the absorption is preferred only to

build a national port and manage marine resources

alone, whereas the advantage of insular location is not

owned by all countries, so this position is usually a

strength and advantage geographically for a country

(Daniah, 2014).

As a maritime country, Indonesia was

internationally recognized at UNCLOS in 1982

which was then ratified by Indonesia with Law

Number 17 of 1985. Under UNCLOS 1982, the total

marine territory of Indonesia is 5,9 million km2,

consisting of 3,2 million km2 of waters territorial and

2,7 km2 waters of Exclusive Economic Zone (ZEE in

Indonesian language), Indonesian waters have the

potential of capture fishery resources of 6,5 million

tons per year, consisting of 4,4 million tons captured

in Indonesian waters and 1,86 tons captured in the

waters of ZEE (Ambari, 2017). This makes Indonesia

as the largest archipelago country in the world.

However, the development of the marine and

fisheries sector is still far from expectation, whereas

the coastal areas and small islands and the Indonesian

archipelago keep the potential of natural resources

and environmental services are very large and not yet

optimally utilized.

The potential of large and vast natural resources

of marine resources can become one of the sources of

foreign exchange for maritime countries, of course

with attention to the ability of human resources in the

management of fisheries and marine resources

diversity available for each community, but the low

ability of maritime communities in Indonesia just rely

on the ability to go to sea as a way to survive.

Indonesia is also included in the category of very

large size because it has a total area of jurisdiction

that reaches ±7,8 million km², one third by water area

of ±5,9 million km², and has a coastline of ±81.000

Daniah, R. and Apriani, F.

Potential of Women Fisherman in Indonesia Frontier.

DOI: 10.5220/0010274000002309

In Proceedings of Airlangga Conference on International Relations (ACIR 2018) - Politics, Economy, and Security in Changing Indo-Paciﬁc Region, pages 119-123

ISBN: 978-989-758-493-0

119

km, so it occupies a long coastline after the Canadian

coastline (Forum for Strategic Studies, 2012). The

long coastal advantages make the habit of the people

in the coastal areas tent to work as fishermen who

should be very prosperous fishermen with the

benefits of marine natural resources abundantly by

Indonesia, but the irony that occurred precisely the

point of poverty is in the coastal areas of the majority

of society foraging by becoming a fisherman.

Law Number 9 of 1985 article 1 point 10 and Law

Number 7 of 2016 formulates that the term fisherman

is any person whose livelihood is fishing. Fishermen

are often synonymous with men fishing, fishing and

trawling, so that under the law most fishermen

women who are not directly involved in the fishing

process are not recognized by the state as fishermen,

but only do the processing marine products related to

fisheries and marine. So that the definition of

fishermen in the Indonesian policy cannot

accommodates fishermen women who actually have

a big role in the coastal economy. The result of the

condition is that the policy targets related to sea

power resulted in fishermen women not being

included in the Indonesian development program.

The contribution of non-existent fisherman

women has a negative impact on women because they

cannot get access to credit, processing technology,

refrigeration warehouses and government-run

training. Whereas in the context of food security and

poverty eradication from the Voluntary Guidelines

for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries, it

expressly states the obligation of the state to treat

fishermen women include obtaining adequate

housing, basic sanitation and safe hygiene,

investment and credit savings, free from sexual

harassment and violence, technological development

and so on that refer to CEDAW (Dhewy, 2017).

Whereas what distinguishes the activities of men

fishermen and women fisherman only on fishing

activities directly. The task of fishermen women is

more comprehensive such as preparing the needs of

the net before the husbands leave, then the catch of

fish will be sorted first, cleaned before the sale and

processed (dried or through the process of fogging)

then marketed. If the catch still does not meet the

needs of the fishermen are usually involved in fish

farming, seaweed processing, processing of the

shells, whereas men are often unemployed in case of

extreme weather in the sea. It does not include

cooking washing, babysitting and cleaning their

house. So far, the gender perspective on fisheries

issues is very weak because it only focused on the

production of fish controlled by male fishermen.

The very high activity of the existence of the

fishermen women is still considered largely that they

are financially dependent on their husbands and not

yet fully engaged as fishermen, so that in the

household position the existence of the fishermen

women is still considered weak, whereas the very

complex activities performed by the women

fishermen from before the men fishermen set out at

sea to go home after the sea.

The image of gender bias is due to patriarchal

culture which sees the fisherman’s activity is more on

men’s struggle to get their family’s welfare, so the

fishermen get access to fishermen’s card consisting of

insurance and other development programs based on

Law Number 7 of 2006 about Fishermen’s Protection

and Empowering, Fish Farmers and Salt Farmers who

have not yet touched on women fishermen because

they are only considered as objects that receive

livelihood from husbands (fishermen) (Istiana, 2014).

If the fishermen’s women are not guaranteed their

rights and are not supported by their existence, it can

be expected that the largest poor can come from this

class. Then the government should pay special

attention to the women fishermen and change the

definition of the very masculine fishermen in Law

Number 7 of 2016. If this is not done, then the

achievement of SDGs in promoting gender equality

and women’s empowerment will fail, especially

related to essential components such as eradication

poverty, food security, sustainable development of

fisheries and marine resources.

2 RESEARCH METHODS

This study is a descriptive qualitative study that

explains and illustrates the problems by performing

data collection, information analysis and reporting of

the results. This study explains the strengths that

fishermen women have in maintaining the wealth of

marine and fishery resources of Indonesia through its

role. The data in this study is collected through the

use of literature review method or library research. So

the type of data used in this study is secondary data,

where the data relevant to the problems obtained and

discussed from various books, journals, reports,

documents and materials from the internet. The

analytical techniques used in this study is a method of

content analysis that explains and analyzed data of

research results that have been read and summarized

from written sources obtained successfully

(documents analysis). The interpretation of data on

the law is then analyzed by using deductive method,

that is the method which tried to apply the relevant

ACIR 2018 - Airlangga Conference on International Relations

120

theory in a phenomenon, and then presents the results

of the study. Validity and reliability of data is done by

reference triangulation.

3 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Frontier Concept for Indonesia

Borders on a country are often interpreted in the

frontier concept that has a function in maintaining the

sovereignty of a state. The borders of the state are

regarded as the most fundamental sovereignty,

having a boundary or dividing line between the two

countries, which appears physically and non-

physically (based on an imaginary line agreement)

(Hayati & Yani, 2007), so that all natural resources

contained therein are wholly owned by the state and

in the event of theft of all resources nature contained

therein, the country shall be entitled to take firm

action against the offender.

The concept of frontier is to realize the zones (path)

with the width that separates the two regions of

different countries (Daldjoeny, 1991). Frontier or also

often referred to as foreland (in front) is the path

(zone) outer from the boundaries of a country that

also touches the boundaries of other countries. Flint

says the frontier is the foremost region of a dangerous

country when it expands its outer enemies, so often

referred to as “the foremost defense” of a country

(Flint, 2007), this leading region is closely tied to the

withdrawal of the integration frontier that includes

internal components such as citizenship, security and

wealth natural resources, so that the state strengthens

frontier because in addition to the border reasons, also

the wealth of marine natural resources that have great

foreign exchange potential for the state that is

guarded not only by the security apparatus but by

every citizen. The potential of citizenship in guarding

coastal areas is not only done by men but women also

have the same potential, such as providing

information to the state security apparatus.

The strength of national borders encompasses the

outer islands region that is correlated with the

geostrategic and geo-economic of a country, most

developed countries have used ocean oriented to

strengthen their Zee territory to overcome

sovereignty and citizenship problems for the

inhabitants of the outer islands, as well as the

management of their natural resource potential,

physically the expansion carried out by the

government through its outer perimeter (Djalal,

2009). Economic unity needs to be improved

especially in the outer border areas, especially in

managing offshore natural resources potential. This is

done as a binder of the nationalism of the offshore

fishermen economic actors as part of the sovereignty

of the state.

3.2 The Strength of Women Fishermen

in Keeping Indonesia Frontier

The advantage for a country with a large coastline is

to have abundant natural resources and have a place

for agricultural, forestry and marine wealth. But this

also resulted in a very broad line of state security

boundaries due a country to be controlled and

supervised by the government, especially in offshore

positions, the high incidence of fish theft and low

levels of marine security due to low control of trans

boundary crime. The ability to overcome all the

threats in the coastal areas, ranging from the low

priority of marine safety issues certainly have an

impact on the catch of fish in the sea, but this problem

has been seen from the many villages inhabited by

poor fishermen groups because in addition to the

fisherman’s ability is still traditional, marine resource

results have also been reduced due to the number of

thefts.

Various attempts to overcome the problems of

fish theft in the sea have been pursued by the

government through various conferences and

international agreements agreed by each country

involved, but the low sanctions for the country that

violates the cause of international agreements are not

able to run well, such as negotiations the 14th Fish

Trade by the FAO Fisheries Commission is often

referred to as Fishery Agreements which turns out to

be only a formality when fish thefts occur in every

country.

This is what causes the need to increase the role

of Indonesian fishermen women who are in the

offshore region as key informants when their

husbands go to sea. Women fishermen have longer

time on the coast so that when fish theft carried out

by neighboring countries, these fishermen women are

able to cooperate with the government to overcome

them with the given facilities and learning skills to get

involved. This eradication effort can increase

knowledge for women fishermen about the

importance of keeping coastal area and its marine

resources. The increasing information prevention of

theft of fish will be more beneficial to the country’s

foreign exchange, especially for the fishermen

families themselves with the increase of catch

because fish will be caught more and more.

The high number of fish thefts by neighboring

countries and fishermen who still catch fish in the

Potential of Women Fisherman in Indonesia Frontier

121

traditional way caused the number of poor people,

especially in the coastal area of 31,02 million people

(BPS, 2010) due to the high dependence of the

fishermen with the natural conditions, sometimes

have to deal with the conditions of large waves that

cause fishermen to be it is difficult to change the

economic conditions for the better, whereas their

existence for the economic power of the country is

very significant. When the coastal areas are

categorized as poor areas, the government needs to

try to develop the potential of blue economy for

women fishermen to survive when the fishermen

(men) go to sea. The role of women fishermen should

be optimized through the development of productive

economic enterprises as well as one way of

empowering women fishermen for sustainable

development of fisheries and marine resources.

The socio-economic condition of the fishermen

community is said to be cause for concern because of

the physical obstacles that are uncertain climate

conditions make the economic endurance of

fishermen households is low. This condition requires

all family members to participate in improving the

family’s economic life, not to mention the low level

of knowledge of women fishermen as a supporter of

household economic needs is needed because the

husbands who work as fishermen from the income

side have no certainty. In famine season or when big

waves, fishermen do not earn income if they do not

have alternative livelihoods or involve families to

make money to meet various household needs

(Kusnadi, 2003). The role of women fishermen in

making money becomes one of the void of fishermen

income in famine season, and increase economic

resilience of fishermen household especially in

coastal area of border which susceptible to seized by

neighbor country.

The empowerment activities of women fishermen

through self-help women themselves can produce a

variety of excellent products from the potential of

fishery resources that can further enhance the role of

the fishermen women to engage in the mindset of the

existing blue economy in order to strengthen the

frontier limit of the state. But in the management of

the blue economy, of course, the role of the

government must also take sides with the fishermen

in the coastal areas, such as the collaboration of

government policies and business groups in

developing trade based on marine resources. The

development of this group of women fishermen

programs is the actualization in developing marine

economic business based on productive coastal

development framework.

Fish farming program that has been processed by

the fishermen women in improving economic

strength in the coastal area of course need to be

supported by the government through the

implementation of pass cards as one of the legal cards

in and out through the border to interaction of

offshore women’s fishing trade, in order to facilitate

the transaction every day in order to expand the trade

of fish cultivation to neighboring countries because it

has economical and efficient value rather than

requiring them to travel great distances if they have

to sell to their own territory. Such as the border case

on Miangas Island (Las Palmes), to transact

destination economies to the Philippines is preferred

because it only covers 48 miles, whereas if it must

transact economically to Talaud District which is part

of North Sulawesi Province, it must travel 145 miles.

The use of pass cards to facilitate trade access to

neighboring countries by the government, also in

order to strengthen the economy in offshore coastal

communities, so that economic independence of

women fishermen as economic actors directly created

when selling the cultivation or processed fish. The use

of pass cards also has other advantages of being able

to generate information about the strengths and

weaknesses of neighboring country borders,

information developed between offshore fishermen

and border fishermen more quickly in the event of

transnational crime such as theft of fish or other

crimes, compared with information that arrived at the

apparatus state security, because women fishermen

are considered as ordinary people.

Fragmented state forms also result in fragile

coastal areas to be separated when one region with

another region is less able to fully integrate

(sovereign), especially on the issue of equitable

development. Whereas Indonesia is also faced with

different geographical conditions or lack of natural

potential, the potential existence of women fishermen

with the existence of marine aquaculture groups such

as strengthening the seaweed cultivation program as

an effort to overcome the problem fragmented, in

addition to the exchange of knowledge on the way of

cultivation sea in offshore area development. In this

case of course the role of a group of women fishermen

with groups of women fishermen in other areas will

be faster and easier due to the emotional equation

thattends to have a higher social empathy and this

effort to create feelings for women fishermen as part

of the country.

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4 CONCLUSION

Various issues of countries that have maritime

categories of course must be faced by Indonesia with

all its consequences, but it turns out the government

just “forget” that there are other forces in overcoming

the maritime problem. The existence of women

fishermen should not only be considered just

complementary reproduction and household, but also

able to overcome the problems that occur in Indonesia

frontier, including the potential of female fishermen

as key informants in providing information about

various criminal acts at sea, as the perpetrator of the

blue economy mindset development, as actors of

foreign market access through pass cards and the

potential to integrate separate coastal areas through

knowledge and strengthening of marine fisheries

groups of inter-offshore fishing females. The

potential and ability of women fisherman need to be

viewed as a state power in maintaining and

maintaining Indonesia frontier that has been only

intended for men fishermen or government security

apparatus.

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