By Sahat Tarida
Staff member in the Monitoring Division 2010-2011

This year the Komnas Perempuan Annual Notes (CATAHU) took the theme of “Terror and Violence against Women: The Loss of State Control”. Based on the CATAHU, Komnas Perempuan found as many as 4 percent (or 3,753) of a total of 105,103 cases of violence against women were cases of sexual violence. These documented sexual violence cases included rape, sexual exploitation, sexual harassment and sexual control. This means that every day there are at least 10 women who experience sexual violence.

The Komnas Perempuan Annual Notes are published every 7^th of March. The CATAHU presents an overall picture on violence against women as handled by women’s crisis centres throughout Indonesia over the period of a year. This data is then compiled by Komnas Perempuan. This compilation of data on violence also includes the analysis of cases of violence against women monitored by Komnas Perempuan over the past year. Several institutions provided data on violence against women such as women’s crisis centres, religious courts, national courts, the Supreme Court, legal aid institutions, hospitals, the police, the Women and Children’s Unit and the Integrated Service Centre for the Empowerment of Women and Children (P2TP2A).

Currently Komnas Perempuan’s CATAHU is the only national-scale report that publishes data on violence against women including sexual violence data. Data and information on violence against women contained in the CATAHU is frequently referenced by the media, non-governmental organisations and even the government.

Komnas Perempuan is convinced that the actual number of cases is far more than the total recorded. This is because not all victims of sexual violence are brave enough or want to report their cases. This is caused by a number of factors including stigmatisation by the community resulting in the alienation of the victim, the culture of blaming the victim and the lack of support from the victim’s family. Shame, the protection of the family’s reputation and the assumption that sexual violence disgraces the family are among the reasons that cause families not to support victims. Therefore, sexual violence is a form of violation of women’s rights that can cause the victim to lose dignity and self worth.

Sexual violence cases recorded in the CATAHU 2010 occurred in the private sphere (2,903 cases), the public sphere (1,781 cases) and the state sphere. Sexual violence in the private sphere means it was committed by somebody who is a blood relative of the victim (such as a father, sibling, uncle, grandfather or relative), within marriage (by the husband of the victim) or within an intimate relationship (by the boyfriend of the victim). Sexual violence in the public sphere means the victim and the perpetrator are not related by blood, kinship or marriage. The perpetrator could be an employer, neighbour, teacher, work colleague, community leader or a person not known to the victim.

Komnas Perempuan’s CATAHU specifically highlights a number of forms of sexual violence including the existence of discriminatory policies which are a form of sexual control such as West Aceh District Regulation No. 5 of 2010. This regulation prohibits women from wearing tight pants or clothes. The West Aceh local regency government also provided at least 12,000 long skirts to women affected by raids carried out as a result of the discriminative policy.

Discriminative policies related to activities of the Ahmadiyah community are also mentioned in the CATAHU. In this regard there are six discriminative policies in the form of decrees and regulations from the district, mayor or governor enacted in the Pandeglang region, the provinces of Banten, East Java, East Kalimantan, West Java and the city of Bogor. Policies regarding the ban on Ahmadiyah have the potential to incite violence, not just towards the Ahmadiyah community in general but specifically towards women and children from that community.

CATAHU also notes that there were four cases which criminalised women as a result of the implementation of Law No. 44 of 2008 on Pornography. These cases of criminalisation include an artist accused of making pornographic material. Consequently blame was placed on the victim who experienced stigmatisation from various parties, including the community, community leaders and law enforcement officers. Even the government strengthened this stigmatisation.

Other cases contained in the CATAHU 2010 include the punishment of four dancers detained by the Taman Sari Jakarta Barat police. In addition, there was the case of the victim DW who was sentenced to seven years imprisonment based on the Karang Anyar Court Judicial Decision No. 172/Pid.B/2009/PN.Kray. The judges ruled that DW intentionally made herself a pornographic object. DW was considered guilty because she was prepared to record her sexual relationship with her boyfriend on film. DW’s consented to the recording because she was tricked into thinking that the footage would be used as a method to convince her parents to marry DW to her boyfriend. Unfortunately the footage was distributed by DW’s boyfriend and the parties that reproduced the footage¹. All of these cases cause the female victims to be blamed and to experience many layers of violence. These matters cannot be separated from the Pornography Act which is open to legal interpretation that is gender-biased in the morality framework.

1 Sri Nurherwati, “Kasus-kasus Pornografi di Depan Hukum Kita”, Komnas Perempuan Newsletter, Ed. 5. September 2010, page 11.