Aceh's women speak out about discrimination

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Tue, 05/23/2006 1:14 PM  |  Opinion

Sandra Hamid, Jakarta

Last April, after almost a year of fact-finding, the National Commission on Violence Against Women produced a report on violence and discrimination against women in Aceh. Two presentations were conducted, in Banda Aceh and in Jakarta, and 500 copies of the report now are on the hands of various government and non-government institutions.

On May 15, this newspaper published an examination of the report by Mayling Oey-Gardiner. The Commission's report, entitled As Victims, Also Survivors, is an essential document for many of us whose work deals directly with women in Aceh. Consequently, it is crucial to revisit the integrity of the report in light of Oey-Gardiner's article.

Anyone who works on the ground with women in Aceh soon learns of the multifaceted discrimination they face. As one gains trust from the women, one learns more about the diverse forms of psychological, physical and sexual violence that many of these women have had to endure.

Their accounts could never emerge in a simple survey, nor could they surface in conventional interviews. We know that the violence is there, but that it can be revealed only if we know how to ask the question appropriately and, moreover, only if we have earned the trust of the victims.

And herein lies the strength of the Commission's report: the data was collected by field researchers who are not only Acehnese women, but who also live in conditions not far different from those whose stories they collected. They have gained the trust of women who share their bitter experience. In fact, some of them, according to the Commission's Special Rapparteur, Samsidar, were also survivors of violence.

The report points out that the field researchers who work alongside the Rapparteur conducted selected investigations based on preliminary information on violence and discrimination. The sample was not drawn randomly. Incidents of violations were investigated with the purpose of understanding why they occurred and what were the enabling factors which allowed them to occur.

This is a legitimate mechanism. The results do not indicate a totality of cases, but merely show what may only be the tip of the iceberg. To ask how pervasive the cases of violence and discrimination are is to miss the very soul of the accounts shared by the Acehnese women through this report.

Yet, it was on the issue of number that Oey-Gardiner's examination began. In particular, she criticizes the report for not providing her with enough information to decide whether or not the abuses are ""endemic"".

This question, in fact the whole article, is alarming, if not thoroughly disappointing. It's all the more so because it comes from Oey-Gardiner, whom the Head of BRR (Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency for Aceh and Nias), Kuntoro Mangunsubroto, called one of his ""gender advisors"" when he responded to the report last April -- a position she chose not reveal in her article.

Instead of brushing the report aside as a ""sensationalized picture"" of the condition of those living in the barracks, a more constructive approach would be to ask how we can use this report to improve the victims' quality of life.

As a ""gender advisor,"" Oey-Gardiner holds a strategic role in ensuring that BRR takes the necessary steps to make life in temporary camps and barracks more bearable, particularly for women. That's a step even Kuntoro himself seems to be willing to take. While she was right to point out that BRR's priority should be on moving people out of the barracks, the reality is that many people will have to stay there for months to come.

Consequently, some improvements have to be made -- and these improvements should aim to make the barracks safer and cleaner places. Ensuring that there is enough light, for example, is a simple yet direct way to quickly respond to the women's fears for their safety when passing through dark areas.

The report is not a general attack on rehabilitation and reconstruction in Aceh, though it appears Oey-Gardiner perceives it as such. The report actually provides many constructive recommendations to sixteen specific institutions.

For example, it requests that law enforcement agencies take reports of human rights abuses seriously and that they bring the perpetrators to justice. The report recommends that cases of domestic violence be dealt with through legislation specifically designed for these crimes.

The report asks for a deliberate and comprehensive approach to make sure that these violations are dealt with, both inside and outside the barracks. Acehnese civil society leaders, including some religious leaders I know, would readily admit that these problems exist and that life is far from fair for Acehnese women. They are actively educating their constituents to embrace rather than blame the victims and to limit the scale of this problem.

Violence against women, particularly sexual violence, should never be reduced to a numbers game. As a nation we struggled through conflicting numbers over how many women were harmed and raped in Jakarta during the May 1998 riot. The real number may never be known, but enough women spoke to the fact-finding committee to reveal what had happened.

Those women victims who spoke provided us with some data, but we know that the number of victims is always higher than that reported, because women are likely to be victimized if they come forward with details about the abuse.

The Commission's Special Rapparteur and her team have patiently asked questions to victims who probably would have liked to bury their pain despite their passion to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Yet, despite the researchers' hard work, some victims, not unlike those women whose lives were shattered in the May 1998 riot, have chosen to remain silent. We will never know the magnitude of the violence perpetrated against women in 1998, as we will also never know how widespread the situation is in Aceh.

But a number of women victims have spoken to Samsidar and her fellow researchers. They have told us that life in the barracks can be unsafe. The Acehnese women who have spoken provided us with a glimpse of the hardships they have had to endure. It is up to all of us to respond constructively, as many, including Oey-Gardiner, did so forcefully following those horrific days in May, 1998.

The writer is a cultural anthropologist. She is the Director of Aceh Programs for The Asia Foundation, Jakarta.

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