Sexual Violence

Another recent case was that of a girl gang raped by 30 men, among whom 2 were identified as police officers. That happened in Menado. Almost daily there are stories of rape or other forms of sexual violence, some of which end in the murder of the victim. The National Commission on Violence Against Women thinks 35 women per day are victims of sexual violence. They acknowledge that, as everywhere else in the world, violence against women is underreported. Similarly the Women’s Association for Justice, with 18 offices all around the country, deals with many cases of domestic and other forms of violence against women.

Although it might be interesting to know the incidence of all forms of violence against women and children, the underlying causes remain to be analysed. The ones that hit headlines are only the tip of the iceberg. Unlike in India or other Asian countries caste or interreligious factors do not immediately account for present day outbursts of sexual violence. Racial and class factors, however, have played and still do play an important role. The National Commission on Violence Against Women was set up in the aftermath of the brutal rape and murder of scores of Chinese girls and women during the so called ‘May riots’ of 1998, the year when the ruthless military regime of President Suharto was overthrown. This regime in its turn was built on the massacre of hundreds of thousands of leftist people and spurred on by sexual slander against communist women. In the process the military raped, sexually tortured and murdered tens of thousands of women and girls.

Masculinist ‘New Order’

The so called ‘New Order’ of General, later President, Suharto rested on a masculinist military culture in which women’s rights were trampled on. Women’s subordination became enshrined in the legal and social structure of the country. In the 1974 marriage law, for instance, women are defined as housewives, who have to sexually satisfy the needs of their husbands who are the heads of the household. If they don’t, their husband is entitled to marry one or more extra wives. The word for a heterosexual woman having sex with her partner is ‘serving’ that partner. Thus women are objectified in this and other laws. Lower class women and those belonging to ethnic and religious minorities are especially vulnerable within this highly unequal gender regime.

The Ministry intended to fight for women’s rights, presently entitled the Ministry for Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection, does neither. Far from empowering and protecting women and girl children it actually disempowers them. It promotes the concept of ‘gender harmony’ in which women’s subordination is enshrined (as the less important instrument in the orchestra which has to produce this harmony). Another concept it advocates is the Arabic word for ‘happy’ in the construct of ‘happy family’. This kind of family is composed of pious, obedient women and strong fathers (for otherwise their sons might turn out to be gay).

Women’s subjugation is also advocated by the many neo-salafist preachers, schools and institutions which have blossomed since the fall of the military dictator. Masculine superiority and feminine subservience are not seen as the products of historical, cultural and religious factors but are naturalized. Extreme cases of violence such as gang rapes and murder are often portrayed as arising from external factors and thus otherized. The culprits may be foreigners such as the high profile case of the Canadian teacher Neil Bartleman who was convicted of paedophilic sodomy on extremely flimsy grounds such as a magic stone, or on LGBT people who are routinely associated with paedophilia, even by political and intellectual leaders who have been trained to know better. Or the violence is seen to arise from moral factors which are the target of a particular fundamentalist-inspired campaign such as that against alcohol. The boys who gang raped Yuyun in Bengkulu were portrayed as being drunk on home-distilled arak. More religion, a new institution for child protection, the passing of the Elimination of Sexual Violence Law or hefty sentences for culprits are measures being discussed at present. They will not immediately lead to the dismantling of the culture of violence nor to the growth of a culture of respect for human and women’s rights. For that Indonesia has to face its violent past and educate its enormous population on tolerance, diversity and gender equality.