Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population, yesterday passed a sexual abuse law, in a victory for women’s groups and Indonesian President Joko Widodo after years of opposition from religious conservatives.
The new Criminal Acts of Sexual Violence Law makes Indonesia among the first Muslim-majority nations to have a dedicated law on sexual offenses, which has generally been considered a private matter.
Some Islamist parties and religious groups had held up the legislative process for the past six years, saying that the new law would promote extramarital sex and homosexuality.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Widodo made the final push for the law in response to rising public concern over Indonesia’s lack of legal redress for cases of sexual abuse, many of which surfaced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The new law allows immediate action be taken on reported cases of sexual harassment based on a single piece of evidence, down from the current requirement of three, said Willy Aditya, member of the Indonesian House of Representatives.
“This is a major step forward for us. It is the only law that offers protection for sexual abuse victims and also provides support for their healing process,” he said in a telephone interview on Monday.
The law was passed by parliament after winning support from all factions, including the Islamist Social Justice Party, previously a strong opponent of the legislation.
The final version has been watered down from the initial draft to win over more conservative lawmakers. Among the key changes are the omission of an article which requires that parties involved in a sexual act give their consent, which critics said promotes extramarital sex and homosexuality, Aditya said.
Recent high-profile cases of abuse had triggered widespread anger and added political pressure to Widodo and the parliament to act. One such case involved multiple instances of rape by the owner of an Islamic boarding school in West Java. Another one was related to a teacher in Central Java who molested 15 female students in return for good grades.
Violence against women last year jumped more than 50 percent in Indonesia to 338,496 cases, data compiled by the Indonesian National Commission on Violence Against Women showed.
The commission itself last year received more than 3,800 abuse reports, up from nearly 2,400 in 2020, the group said in its annual report last month.
Data collection was disrupted in the first year of the pandemic, which meant cases in 2020 were likely higher than reported for the year, the commission said.
We suspect the pandemic lockdowns “also contributed to the jump in reported cases last year, although it is difficult to confidently say this without a thorough investigation,” commission chairwoman Andy Yentriyani said.
Those cases also prompted Nadiem Makarim, a minister overseeing several briefs, including education, to take more direct action against sexual harassment.
In November last year, he issued a ministerial decree to protect university students from sexual crimes, a move that was hailed by proponents of the sexual abuse law, but criticized by the same parties and religious groups that opposed it.
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