This year’s Kartini Day, a commemoration of Indonesia’s feminist icon,
occurs amid controversy
surrounding the rape of a 6-year-old boy by janitors in an international school
in Jakarta. Public outrage is understandably prodigious. Yet, by contrast, rapes against women
in Indonesia are often taken for granted. When a few police officers in
Gorontalo, Sulawesi, were reported to have gang raped a teenage girl late last
year, the news certainly failed to rouse public indignation to a fever point,
so much so that it simply petered out of the media in due course.
Granted
that rapes against women are more common than children, are they less
important? The National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan)
reported in 2010 that they had recorded 400,939 cases of sexual violence
against women since 1998, 1,561 perpetrated by state officials, members of
law-enforcing bodies and the military. The enormous figure would probably be
even more staggering if the unreported cases were to be taken into account.
A UN
survey covering the Asia and Pacific region revealed last year that nearly 25
percent of Indonesian men admit to having non-consensual sex with their partners,
without realizing that such an act is considered rape.
The
statistics may justly categorize Indonesia as a rape culture. One of the
characteristics of rape culture is the acceptance of sexual violence as a
normal occurrence, typified by the cavalier way most Indonesians treat news of
rape against their fellow Indonesians.
Another
is victim-blaming. When a woman was sexually assaulted on the Jakarta busway
while unconscious, many Indonesians on the social media commented the girl had
dressed “immodestly” by wearing a miniskirt, suggesting that it was no wonder
that she had been singled out for sexual violence.
The
comments are reminiscent of another verbal outrage committed by former Jakarta
Governor Fauzi Bowo when he reasoned that the prevalence of rapes on the public
transport system is due to women wearing short skirts. This, he argued,
naturally provoked men sexually.
In order
to trivialize rape, a culture may also relegate it to the realm of jokes, and
when it comes to rape jokes, Indonesia is definitely not lacking, even in the
highest places. Early last year, Supreme Court judge candidate Daming Sunusi
provoked raucous laughter in the House of Representatives when he made a
distasteful gaffe on rape. When questioned whether he thought the death sentence
to be a just punishment for rape, he jovially replied, “I’m doubtful whether
capital punishment is called for here as both the rapist and the raped enjoy
the experience.”
The
statement itself is unworthy of any judge, let alone one aspiring for the Supreme
Court. And the fact it elicited laughter rather than umbrage from the mostly
male audience of Indonesian lawmakers is disconcerting, to say the least.
The
utter lack of sympathy and pernicious victim-blaming is also to be found in the
person of Muhammad Nuh, the incumbent minister of education. Commenting on the
rape of a schoolgirl in Depok, Nuh informed the press that the aforementioned
girl was known to be “a naughty girl,” and that the rape claim may have been
false. “They could’ve done it consensually but then she later claimed to have
been raped,” he said. He later apologized for making the insensitive remark,
but had effectively slut-shamed the victim by questioning her integrity.
Slut-shaming
is very much a prevalent practice to downplay rape. The sex scandal involving
poet and literary giant Sitok Srengenge late last year is a notable example. A
university student reported him to the police for performing non-consensual
acts on her over a period of almost a year.
Owing to
his social standing and the overdue report, the public was torn into two camps,
with most doubting how anyone could have been forced into sex for so many
times. People failed to consider that Sitok had a mentor-student relationship
with the victim, which would have weighed heavily against her if the mentor had
chosen to manipulate it to entail sex.
In
2007-12, reported cases of violence against women went up by 40 percent
nationally. This alarming trend should be a reminder that a woman-friendly
society remains as elusive as ever for most Indonesian women. The continuing
violence against them, and the half-hearted justice we give them when they are
assaulted and abused, have only one result: the “modern girl” who is “proud,
independent” and “happy,” longed for by Kartini more than a century ago, is
still a dream in the making.
Johannes
Nugroho is a writer from Surabaya
No comments:
Post a Comment