They Rise and Strive to Prevent Violence

KOMPAS/JOHANES GALUH BIMANTARA

Kristin, penyintas gempa asal Desa Jono Oge, Kecamatan Biromaru, Kabupaten Sigi, Sulawesi Tengah, menyiapkan konsumsi bagi anak balita, ibu hamil, dan ibu menyusui di pos pengungsian di Desa Pombene, Biromaru, Sabtu (27/10/2018).

Erlia, 37, still finds it hard to forget the moment when her house on the coast of Loli Pesua village, Banawa district, Donggala, Central Sulawesi, was swept away by the tsunami on 28 September 2018. Now the mother of six continues to survive in a temporary dwelling by various means.

Several months after moving into a temporary home known as a huntara in Loli Pesua village, Erlia decided to cook and sell food in the huntara zone. Before the disaster, she washed the clothes of village neighbors while her husband worked as a casual laborer.

“Instead of doing nothing in the huntara, I’d rather be selling food. I make binte (corn porridge) and boiled noodles. In the morning and afternoon I go around the temporary home camp. Thank God, there are buyers. Every day I earn Rp 10,000 to Rp 15,000 in profits,” said Erlia when visited on Friday (1 November 2019).

Erlia also makes and sells banana snacks and cassava chips in small plastic packs. The nibbles are taken to school by one of her children, Salsa, 9, a third grader, and sold for Rp 1,000 per pack. Salsa returns home daily with Rp 30,000 when the 30 packs of snacks are sold out.

Amid the difficult conditions being faced, Erlia also serves as a volunteer for Ruang Ramah Perempuan (RRP/Women’s Friendly House), which was set up by the Central Sulawesi Women’s Equality Struggle Group (KPKPST) in the Loli Pesua huntara camp.

KOMPAS/VIDELIS JEMALI

A housewife sits in her tent in an evacuation center in Balaroa village, West Palu district, Palu city, Central Sulawesi, Friday (1/11/2019). With no separators inside the tent, the privacy of residents, especially women and girls, is under threat.

Along with Siti Azizah, 39, and Rifki, 23, also tsunami survivors, Erlia gathers information from female survivors experiencing violence. They receive reports about different cases of violence befalling adult women and teenage girls.

Also rising from wretched conditions is Sartika, 40, a liquefaction disaster survivor living in the Pantoloan Induk subdistrict huntara camp in Tawaeli district, Palu city. Following the calamity, the mother of six faced multiple acts of violence while dwelling in an evacuation shelter. In the emergency tent, she was sexually harassed by a fellow refugee. Sartika couldn’t take the perpetrator to court as she did not see his face. It happened when she was sleeping in the dimly lit tent.

Later, Sartika was also subjected to domestic violence (KDRT) by her husband, who was then jobless and lived in the huntara. Sartika reported the case to the police. Her spouse was imprisoned. Now she takes care of her children as a single parent.

The violent acts she experienced awakened her. Sartika has even joined Pantoloan RRP volunteer Ova to protect huntara women and children from violence. Two months ago, she was appointed to be neighborhood unit (RT) chief. “Now nobody dares to commit sexual harassment, let alone KDRT, for fear of being reported to the police,” she said.

Protection

Living in emergency tents and temporary homes for over a year makes women and children vulnerable to sexual violence, rape or rape attempts, KDRT and child marriages. Several cases have been reported but most of them aren’t exposed because survivors dare not report them.

The situation makes the presence of Erlia and Sartika, as well as RRP volunteers, very important in the effort to protect women and children in refugee locations. “Women facing violence will be more open to reveal their cases to volunteers due to the shared feeling of fellow survivors,” said Soraya Sultan, chairman of KPKPST.

In the post-disaster period, there are 12 RRPs in 12 evacuation spots in Palu city, Sigi regency and Donggala regency. The RRPs have been executed by KPKPST and the Women’s Learning Network {Libu Perempuan) of Central Sulawesi since 13 October 2019 for women’s protection, psychosocial support, violence prevention and women’s empowerment. The RRPs are funded by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Indonesia, supported by regency and provincial offices of women’s empowerment and child protection, the Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry and a number of other institutions.

Through the RRPs, child marriage cases have also been unveiled in refugee locations. By October 2019, 83 child marriages were recorded by the KPKPST and Libu Perempuan. Most of the youngsters tying the knot were aged 14 to 17. The main reason for their marriages was for that most of the teenage girls had gotten pregnant.

The latest child marriage case was found in Lolu village, Biromaru district, Sigi. Last weekend, Kompas met with Firman, 16, and Yani, 15, in the earthquake and liquefaction survivors’ huntara in Lolu village. They got married on 19 October. Yani admitted she was pregnant but had no idea about the period of pregnancy as she had never consulted the doctor. What she remembered was that around May she no longer experienced menstruation.

Firman and Yani provide only one portrait of a child marriage marking Central Sulawesi’s post-disaster time. Besides weak supervision, the camp situation and conditions of minimum lighting and control open the opportunity for children to become promiscuous.

Although only in 12 refugee spots (out of 400 evacuation locations), the RRP presence at least gives space to women and female child survivors to speak and report their cases.

Dewi Rana, director of Central Sulawesi’s Libu Perempuan, said her network kept promoting understanding among disaster survivors in order to prevent child marriages. They are also asked to promptly report to subdistrict heads, command post chairmen or custom institutions whenever they hear of child marriages.

Nevertheless, child marriage practices, KDRT and various gender-based acts of violence are expected to threaten women and female child survivors of disasters in Central Sulawesi as long as they still live in emergency tents and huntara that are unsafe and unfriendly to women and children. Female survivors can only hope that permanent homes as promised by President Joko Widodo will soon be realized.