City prepares bylaw to better protect women and children

Indah Setiawati ,  The Jakarta Post ,  JAKARTA   |  Fri, 07/10/2009 11:31 AM  |  City

Jakarta administration is preparing a bylaw for next year that aims to improve governmental protection of women and children.

The bylaw draft was important to make public institutions pay closer attention to protecting women and children, especially to push them to eradicate domestic abuse committed by their members, the Integrated Service Center for the Empowerment of Women and Children (P2PT2A) deputy chairwoman Margaretha Hanita said Thursday.

The legal aid foundation for the Indonesian Women’s Association for Justice (LBH APIK) claimed governmental institutions, including the armed forces, the civil service, may not be effective in combating domestic violence because some of their own staff members are involved in acts of abuse against their spouses and children.

“The city bylaw will also be expected to seek commitment from related institutions to make programs that support the protection for women and children.”

She said every province would need a local regulation that provided clear technical guidance on carrying out a number of laws, including the 2004 law for the elimination of domestic violence and 2002 law on child protection.

Wien Ritola Tasmaya, the organization chairwoman, said some other provinces like Riau, Banten, West Nusa Tenggara and East Java had taken one step ahead compared to Jakarta because they had approved the bylaw.

The assistant to the city’s people’s welfare secretary, Effendi Anas, said he fully supported the bylaw drafting.

“We know that it will take time to approve a bylaw draft. The city council itself will be busy with their agenda in the following months as they will face a transition period. I hope we can use that period to finish the draft,” he said.

He said a study on the draft had been conducted in 2007 and the draft had been submitted to the city administration and its legal office last year.  

Wien said she would also hold a presentation on the bylaw draft before it was submitted to the commission E of the city council that oversaw people’s welfare.

Igo Ilham, head of the Commission E, said the legal power of the current laws were actually enough but an existence of the city regulation would better complete some aspects of the laws, including prevention measures and the city administration‘s responsibility.

“The concept of the draft should aim to build people’s awareness and the administration’s attention.”
Jakarta ranked first in the high number of abuse cases to women in the country in 2006 with over 7,000 cases. It ranked the first again in the following year before ranking fourth in 2008, according to the data of the National Commission on Violence Against Women.

P2TP2A dealt with 1,015 cases of violence to women and children in 2006, 1,583 cases in 2007 and 1,448 cases in 2008.   

Wien said the organization only recorded four cases of civil servants who committed domestic violence against their wives.

LBH APIK reported of 300 reports their organization had received by June, nearly 50 domestic abuse claims were from the wives and partners of police officers, soldiers, lawyers, judges and public servants.
Last year, from nearly 330 reports, more than 50 alleged domestic violence incidents were perpetrated by public servants.
NGOs say that figures on domestic violence reports were the tip of the iceberg as a lot of women do not make such reports because they believed such treatment was taboo.

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