The Indonesian archipelago comprises some 17,508 islands and is the fourth most populous country in the world. It is also the biggest Muslim country.

Indonesia is a republic. The President is also Head of State. The President and the Legislature are elected by universal suffrage. The seat of the government is in the capital Jakarta. The President can be elected for two successive five-year terms. All adults can vote, apart from members of the armed forces and those deprived of their voting rights by judicial process.

The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) holds the legislative power. Its main functions are to review and approve amendments to the Constitution, to swear in the President and also to indict him. The MPR consists of two chambers: the House of Representatives (DPR), with 550 members, and the House of Regional Representatives (DPD), with 128 members. The DPR passes laws and supervises the Executive; its members are elected for five-year terms via proportional representation. The DPD is a relatively new chamber which deals with regional administrative matters; it has four elected members for each province. In April 2009 legislative elections were held for the third time since the end of the Suharto dictatorship. Political parties must have at least 30% female candidates on their party lists. Since the elections in April 2009, of the 560 seats available in the Peoples Consultative Assembly, 101 are held by women, i.e. 18%.

The President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, was re-elected in July of the same year winning enough votes to render a second round unnecessary. There was a high turnout and the result was clear: the outgoing President, according to the polls, won with 60% of the votes.

The attacks which followed this democratic victory are attributed to Jemaah Islamiya, the Indonesian branch of Al Qaeda, and according to the analysts this was due to the fact that the largest Muslim country in the world moving in the direction of the democratic model is the worst possible news for Al Qaeda. Two of the capitals main hotels were attacked by suicide bombers in 2009, causing at least nine deaths and leaving another fifty injured.

The Judiciary is increasingly independent and less subject to the influence of the Executive. Cases of corruption are still being reported, however. The law guarantees the same rights for all citizens but some discrimination continues all the same.

Aceh, the Indonesian province in the extreme north of the island of Sumatra, remains associated in our memories with an earthquake followed by a tsunami on 26 December 2004 with its epicentre in this area, causing a genuine tragedy. Most of the victims who died in this tsunami were in Aceh. Little is known, however, about the peace that these giant waves carried with them. The tsunami opened the way to the end of a conflict, the separatist war waged by rebels against the central government which had been bathing the region in blood for three decades. In fact, the tsunami served as a catalyst for change when the peace negotiations had been deadlocked for some time. The reconstruction of Aceh is considered to be a great success. 140,000 houses, 1,700 schools, 996 government buildings, 36 airports and ports, 3,800 mosques, 363 bridges and almost 15,000 kilometres of roads. Even today, however, there are still thousands of people who have not been re-housed. Education International played an active part in the school construction process, particularly in the most disadvantaged areas. The inhabitants of the area were faced with new unknown situations following the tsunami. They had lived virtually isolated from the world for decades. And suddenly thousands of foreigners came to their help, most of them Westerners. For the population of Aceh, the tsunami also meant opening up significantly to the outside world.

In April 2010 the Indonesian Constitutional Court dealt a hard blow to religious freedom in upholding a controversial law prohibiting "blasphemy", Human Rights Watch urged the Indonesian government to repeal this law and other laws infringing the right to freedom of religion, belief and conscience. The Court ruled that the blasphemy law, which lays down penalties for anyone expressing beliefs departing from the core principles of the officially recognised religions - Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Confucianism and Buddhism -, is a legal restriction on minority beliefs because it allows law and order to be maintained.

Schooling is not free of charge and many poor children simply cannot afford an education. Boys and girls must have the same educational opportunities, but boys are more likely to complete their education. Six years of primary school and three years of lower secondary are compulsory, but the law is not enforced. The monthly fees for State schools are based on average incomes. The cost of transport, school materials and uniforms for primary and secondary school pupils, along with tuition fees, prevent many families from sending their children to school. The children of an Indonesian national mother and a foreign father need a visa to stay in the country until they are eligible for citizenship at the age of 18, and they cannot attend State schools.

A serious problem in higher education is the concentration of universities and specialist institutes in the capital Jakarta, to the detriment of the suburbs and the other large cities in the archipelago. Access to quality studies is increasingly limited to the well-off classes given the high level of university fees. The system of semi-privatisation of higher education is causing far from negligible problems for Indonesian society, which has also been hard hit recently by the economic crisis.

A two-year programme begins at the age of five. At this level 99% of education is private. The net enrolment rate (NER) is 36%. There are 137,069 ECE teachers (98% women). The pupil/teacher ratio (PTR) is 13:1.

Education is compulsory between the ages of 7 and 15. Primary education begins at the age of seven and last for six years. At this level, 16% of education is private. The NER is 95% (48% girls). Of the pupils who enrol for the first grade, 88% reach the last grade of primary education. 4% of pupils repeat a grade. There are 1,431,486 primary school teachers (54% women). The PTR is 17:1.

Secondary education begins at the age of 13 and last for six years. At this level, 43% of education is private. 35% of secondary school pupils follow technical training courses. The NER is 69%. 1% of pupils repeat a grade. There are 1,115,068 secondary school teachers, 662,843 (42% women) in lower secondary and 452,225 (39% women) in upper secondary. The PTR is 15:1 in lower secondary and 13:1 in upper secondary.

Upper-level tertiary students physically mistreat lower-level students, in some cases leading to death. The police entered the campus of the Muslim University of Indonesia and injured 65 students who were protesting at the arrest of a Muslim cleric suspected of leading the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiya. Elsewhere, a peaceful demonstration by the Bandung Student Executive Body was broken up, dozens were injured and 23 students were hospitalised. The police also dispersed a group of university students protesting against martial law in conjunction with SAMAN (Solidarity for Acehnese Students Nusantara). 31,687 Indonesian students are studying abroad, especially in Australia (10,184), the US (8,880), Malaysia (4,731), Germany (2,572) and Japan (1,474).

Children with disabilities have the right to education and rehabilitative treatment. Government officials complain that parents choose to keep disabled children at home, but many schools refuse to accept them because they do not have the necessary resources to help and educate them. There are 700 schools for disabled children but only 41 of them are State-run. Many disabled children beg for a living. Companies with more than 100 employees have to set aside 1% of posts for disabled persons, but as with many other laws this is not enforced.

The law does not provide for the granting of asylum or refugee status to people meeting the definition in the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its Protocol of 1967. As far as education is concerned, the law does not recognise the right of refugees to education due to their lack of citizenship. The much larger group of internally displaced persons often have no access to education because their children do not have the necessary documents.

Officially, the government promotes racial and ethnic tolerance, but there are reports of discrimination and abuse. The government considers all citizens to be indigenous, with the exception of ethnic Chinese, and recognises the existence of minority communities and their right to participate in social and political life. These communities include the Dayak tribes of Kalimantan, families living as seafaring nomads and the 312 officially recognised indigenous groups in Papua. The indigenous population are subject to widespread discrimination in practice and there is little respect for their traditional land rights. Ethnic Chinese represent some 3% of the population. The language and content of education for minorities needs to be reviewed, but the scarcity of resources is a fundamental problem.

The blasphemy law has been used to prosecute and imprison members of the religious minorities and of the traditional religions. It has served as the legal basis for a series of government regulations facilitating official discrimination based on religion. These include a governmental decree of June 2008 ordering members of the religious community of Ahmadiya to cease all public activities seeing that they had strayed from the main teachings of Islam and threatened offenders with up to five years in prison. The decree was issued following a violent attack on 1 June 2008 by more than 500 Islamist militants on a group of peaceful demonstrators supporting religious pluralism.

University teachers and students were at the forefront of the movement against the dictatorship and in favour of democratic reforms, despite the laws and repressive practices to restrict political and intellectual freedom. There are still obstacles for the academic community. They include mandatory political background checks on new teachers, book censorship, laws criminalising dissenting views, the prohibition of political activity and expression among students and the banning of critical academics, writers and dissidents from public forums and seminars.

Formally, women have the same rights, obligations and opportunities as men but their participation must not conflict with their role in improving family welfare and the education of the younger generation.

A report by Amnesty International reveals the large numbers of Indonesian women and girls, especially from poor and marginalised communities, who are struggling for access to reproductive health services in the face of restrictive laws, policies and practices. The Indonesian government has undertaken to meet the Millennium Development Goals. But to reduce gender inequality and improve maternal health in the country it must ensure that women and girls enjoy their sexual and reproductive rights, free of coercion, discrimination and the threat of penalisation.

Some women and girls are more threatened in their sexual and reproductive rights because they are in more vulnerable situations and the State has not taken appropriate measures to protect them. One example is the situation of women in domestic service: some 2.6 million people, most of them women and girls. They are faced with specific risks of abuse because they are not legally recognised and protected as employees; they work in their employees homes, often cut off from their families and other forms of support. The lack of safeguards on the part of the State to provide suitable protection of the rights of these workers erects additional barriers to the exercise of their sexual and reproductive rights. Women and girls working in domestic service have problems in access to information on and education in sexuality and reproduction due to the restrictions placed on their movements; they can suffer gender-based violence at their workplace and are at risk of abuse during and after pregnancy.

In Aceh, Sharia (Islamic) law is applied abusively, violating the human rights of girls and women in particular, as they are forced by representatives of the said law to undergo virginity tests and are subject to requirements concerning their dress in public, among other things. In the report "Policing Morality: Abuses in the Application of Sharia in Aceh, Indonesia", Human Rights Watch describes the way in which these laws are applied by the authorities, and on occasions by individuals. These rules are among the five criminal laws inspired from Sharia which Aceh passed on matters ranging from games of chance to Islamic rituals and good Muslim behaviour. HRW compiled testimonies from several women in Aceh who were arrested by the religious police during patrols organised to supervise compliance with the dress code. The police took note of their particulars and threatened to arrest them with arrest and a lashing if they offended again.

Women earn 68% of mens wages on average. Sexual harassment is prohibited, but there are reports of cases of harassment at the workplace. Violence against women is increasing and there is a growing traffic in women being moved from the countryside to cities due to poverty and economic inequality. Efforts are being made to raise citizen awareness and prevent female genital mutilation.

Child labour continues to be a major social problem in Indonesia. The national survey conducted on child labour by the statistics office (BPS) in 2009 revealed that there are around 4 million children working, but these figures are considered conservative. Child labour is found in almost all parts of Indonesia and in various sectors such as agriculture, plantations, domestic service and the informal economy. There are street children and a very high rate of migration, which increases the vulnerability of children to sexual exploitation or forced labour. Many adolescents are forced to work in debt bondage.

The Manpower Act prohibits the employment of children under the age of 18. There are a few exceptions: children between 13 and 15 can work three hours a day in certain conditions, with parental consent and provided that the work does not coincide with school hours. The law does not establish any exceptions for children aged 16 and 17. They are prohibited from working in hazardous conditions, but the law is not enforced. Corrupt civil servants issue identity cards to underage girls, enabling them to enter the sex trade. The sexual exploitation of boys by paedophile rings continues in Bali. Employment brokers pay parents advances on the future wages to be earned by their daughters and the child is then required to repay the broker.

With a view to reducing school dropout rates, the International Labour Organisation and the Teachers Association of Indonesia, Persatuan Guru Republik Indonesia (PGRI), initiated a joint programme in 2009 to combat child labour.

The legal framework is not favourable for trade union activities and the right to strike is very limited. In addition, the government has continued to undermine workers rights by not firmly applying the labour legislation. Unions which tried to have their contractual rights or basic regulations respected through strike action ran up against indifference on the part of the government, which failed to react to flagrant violations of the law. Workers and trade union representatives were also the subject of false charges in criminal cases brought by employers with the objective of frustrating trade union representation.

There are four main issues weakening or hindering effective representation of workers by their trade unions and appropriate exercise of freedom of association:

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