Politicization of Women’s Bodies

Kompas

ILLUSTRATION: Residents and a number of activists gathered to express their concerns for YY, a victim of rape in Bengkulu in front of the State Palace, Jakarta, Wednesday (4/5/2016).

For the umpteenth time, eradicating the sexual abuse of women and (male and female) children has been hard to carry out due to political constraints.

In the hands of politicians, the issue of humanity can also be made a commodity. Propaganda is launched by uprooting the term “consensual sex” from its context in the literature of studies of women and unilaterally giving a political meaning. The term is used to oppose efforts to protect the public from sexual crime, including that of the University of Indonesia, which is engaged in legal and social literacy activity to protect its own students.

The exclusion of the Sexual Abuse Elimination Bill from the National Legislation Program of the House of Representatives (Prolegnas DPR) has resulted from such politicization and indicated an emergency of the state ideology Pancasila (Franz Magnis-Suseno, Kompas, 25/9/2020). This article aims at analyzing the necessity of law to put an end to sexual abuse and testing whether the Sexual Abuse Elimination Bill fulfills appropriate legal requirements in terms of philosophy, law and sociology.

Sexual violence is a crime against humanity rather than morality because it threatens human lives, including victims’ death, disabled condition, severe trauma and suicidal tendency. World history has recorded that World War II or armed conflicts in all regions were marked by sexual violence against women. Indonesian history has noted this crime during the Japanese occupation, around the struggle for independence, the incident of 1965 and the rioting of May 1998. Sexual abuse also occurs in a peaceful time, including the present pandemic period.

This crime was fully covered up and unrecorded, only to be found out by the public decades later following an attempt to conduct a scientific inquiry of history.

When armed conflicts or riots prevail, women and children are sexually tortured by opponents for the purpose of weakening the strength of their adversaries. In the 1998 incident, a lot of women of Chinese descent in Jakarta, Solo and Surabaya died, became permanently handicapped as their genitals were crushed with pointed/blunt objects, were gang raped and some were killed (Fact Finding Joint Team, 1998). This crime was fully covered up and unrecorded, only to be found out by the public decades later following an attempt to conduct a scientific inquiry of history.

The state does not learn from other nations, such as Germany, which has acknowledged the crime against humanity and built memorials in many places so that the younger generation will not repeat it: “Mea Culpa”. The state is accountable to the victims, and would-be victims whose number is increasing daily. The endorsement of the Sexual Abuse Elimination Bill is a settlement that has been awaited for quite a long time.

Philosophy

The essential part of the process of lawmaking is to ask the people what they are experiencing. In the case of an emergency, what kind of legal protection is needed? The priorities of legal issues in the DPR is in the public spotlight, its accountability is at stake. The DPR should not prioritize bills that are not needed while ruling out the most urgent ones.

The next essential question is, why doesn’t the existing law protect victims so that there should be a legal reform? First, sexual abuse is only regarded as a crime against morality in the c.

Second, the definition of sexual abuse in the KUHP cannot accommodate the complexity of its elements, which are: (1) sexual acts (physical, verbal, nonverbal), done in ways that are (2) unwanted, (3) without consent, (4) with coercion, or (5) benefit from relations of authority, (6) cause misery/suffering to victims.

KOMPAS/Toto Sihono

Third, the Code of Criminal Procedure (KUHAP) imposes the burden of proof on victims and this generally cannot be fulfilled due to their stigma, their fear of perpetrators, or of revictimization by law enforcement personnel. Victims only dare to report after a long time and their physical evidence has gone.

Law

Lawmaking should go through a legally correct process. In principle it should be preceded by the compilation of an academic manuscript. There are several tests like the method of ROCCIPI (Rule, Opportunity, Capacity, Communication, Interest, Process and Ideology) and RIA (Regulatory Impact Analysis) to discover the problems and social impacts of the law.

The academic manuscript is based on research and assessment of tested quality and validity.

Various articles in the Sexual Abuse Elimination Bill are based on thousands of cases of violence annually reported to Komnas Perempuan (National Commission for Women) and different legal aid institutes and safe houses scattered all over the country. The reports were obtained from victims, their families, attendants, handling agencies, and some of them become public cases if taken to court of law.

The diverse public cases were analyzed, openly discussed or used for lectures at law faculties. There are 75 law faculties in Indonesia with the subject of Gender and Law. Lecturers conduct research, advocacy and provide guidance for victims. The various academic and advocacy activities produced the academic manuscript and it is subjected to different tests.

The Sexual Abuse Elimination Bill was drafted as lex specialis, a special criminal law providing greater access to justice to victims, including victims of multiple violence because they are disabled, under age and poor girls. The formulation of each article is clear, almost offering no room for the interpretation of catchall provisions.

It stipulates preventive, curative and rehabilitative measures, regulates the requirements for relevant law enforcement personnel to receive training and have knowledge of law with a gender perspective, and prohibits any revictimization of victims.

Sociology

Within two hours there are three victims of sexual abuse in Indonesia (Komnas Perempuan, 2019). Of the 431,471 cases of violence against women reported, 4,898 were sexual abuse cases, comprising 2,807 domestic cases and 2,091 community cases. During the pandemic period there were 461 cases, made up of 258 domestic cases and 203 public cases (Komnas Perempuan, 2020).

The perpetrators were people closest to victims who should have guarded them.

Children have become sexual abuse victims in places considered safe such as houses, schools, campuses and even around worship buildings. The perpetrators were people closest to victims who should have guarded them. Disabled child victims totaled 770 in incest cases (Komnas Perempuan, 2020). Of the 123 child victims, 21 cases occurred in schools and the perpetrators were teachers (Indonesian Child Protection Commission, 2019). Campuses are not sterile from sexual abuse either. There were 174 cases on 79 campuses in 29 provinces. Their victims were 93 percent female students, who general didn’t report (Jakarta Post, 2019).

Legal reform

The endorsement of the Sexual Abuse Elimination Bill was urged by the People’s Assembly initiated by youths who represented hundreds of mass organizations of East, Central and West Indonesia from Aceh to Papua. Assembly participants making statements were survivors, victims’ attendants, religious figures, activists and academicians.

They testified to various kinds of sexual violence. Their perpetrators were identified as people having relations of authority with victims, like fathers and children, lecturers and students, teachers and students, superiors and subordinates in working places, safe house officers who are supposed to protect.

Many victims have no idea that what has happened to them is sexual abuse because they have no literacy of the female body and sexuality as there has never been such education and they are illegally illiterate.

KOMPAS/RADITYA HELABUMI

Sulistyowati Irianto

The state should be present to thoroughly settle the thousands of cases annually and new cases daily. The state should also protect us all from those who oppose this bill, the group having misogynist (hatred of women) interpretation. The aim of passing the Sexual Abuse Elimination Bill is to end sexual violence and deter perpetrators so that there will be no more victims.

The future of the Indonesian nation doesn’t only concern sufficiency in food and clothing, but also the guarantee of security and protection from crime against humanity that most degrades human dignity.

Sulistyowati Irianto, Cofounder, Gender and Law studies, School of Law, University of Indonesia