KUPI, the Indonesian women ulama movement, has been nominated for the 2025 Human Rights Tulip, the Dutch government’s annual award for innovative human rights initiatives. The nomination places women religious leaders from Indonesia among ten global finalists. KUPI will be represented at the award ceremony in The Hague on 10 December – International Human Rights Day – by Ruby Kholifah, director of AMAN Indonesia and one of Mensen met een Missie’s long-standing partners in the country.
For Mensen met een Missie, this nomination is powerful news. Not only because it honours a movement that is changing the lives of women and girls across Indonesia, but also because it reflects years of shared work with the organisations and leaders who helped shape KUPI from the start.
Recognition for faith-based women’s leadership
KUPI (short for the Congress of Indonesian Women Ulama in Indonesian) is a network of women Islamic scholars and activists who use religious authority to defend women’s rights and human dignity. The movement is known for challenging violence against women and girls, countering intolerance, and promoting equality from within religious communities.
In practice, KUPI’s women ulama provide religious guidance, lead community dialogues, and train new generations of female religious leaders. Their work targets the beliefs that can normalise discrimination or justify abuse, and replaces them with inclusive interpretations rooted in justice and compassion.
Building bridges together
Ruby Kholifah has been closely connected to KUPI’s international advocacy and is one of the key figures bringing women religious leaders into policy spaces that are often closed to them. Through AMAN Indonesia, she works at the intersection of peacebuilding, gender justice, and freedom of religion or belief.
Mensen met een Missie has collaborated with Ruby and AMAN for many years. Together, we support women and religious leaders who work along sensitive fault lines, where interreligious mistrust, polarisation and gender-based violence reinforce one another. In communities facing deep social tensions, Ruby is known as a bridge‑builder; someone who helps people speak across divides and confront harmful beliefs that fuel exclusion.
MM long-term partners at KUPI’s core
Our relationship with KUPI is rooted in long‑term partnerships with several of the movement’s initiators and organisers. One of our enduring partners in Indonesia Fahmina Institut, hosted the first KUPI congress in 2017 and has remained a central driver of the movement ever since. We also work closely with the Gusdurian Network, another long‑standing partner that helped organise the second KUPI congress in 2022, alongside Fahmina and AMAN.
Through these partnerships, Mensen met een Missie has been connected to KUPI’s development from its early, locally anchored beginnings to the national and international role it plays today. Over the years, this collaboration has included joint learning and exchange with women religious leaders from other regions, and moments of international advocacy where KUPI leaders brought community‑based experience into global policy arenas. Such as at our side events during the UN Commission on the Status of Women in March 2025, and the knowledge exchange between the African Women of Faith and women religious leaders from Indonesia, who shared the KUPI methodology with their counterparts from Africa.
The nomination therefore resonates deeply with what we see in our work: when women religious leaders are supported over time, they can shift norms, protect rights, and prevent violence in places where change is hardest and most needed.
A grassroots movement with growing global influence
KUPI’s nomination highlights what long‑term, locally led peacebuilding can achieve. What began as grassroots organising by women scholars has grown into a national movement shaping religious discourse in Indonesia, and is now being recognised internationally.
Indonesia has seen rising polarisation in recent years, alongside pressure on civic space and minority rights. In that context, KUPI’s strategy is distinctive: it uses respected religious authority to reduce intolerance and protect rights at the level where beliefs are formed and passed on: in mosques, neighbourhood meetings, classrooms and women’s circles.
Ceremony on 10 December
Ruby Kholifah will represent KUPI at the Human Rights Tulip ceremony in The Hague on 10 December, and of course Mensen met een Missie will be present to support Ruby and the wider KUPI delegation. Whatever the outcome, the nomination already recognises the courage and impact of women religious leaders who work – often under pressure – to prevent violence, reduce exclusion and keep dialogue alive in their communities. And it underlines why investing in women’s religious leadership is not a side issue, but a vital pathway to gender equality, human rights, and lasting peace.
