T

he Indonesian media has enjoyed relative press freedom since the 1998 reform movement. But when it comes to reporting stories of sexual abuse they still have to learn about ethics.

At least that is what the Press Council and the National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan) have said.

The two organizations are calling on media sources to be sensitive when reporting on sexual abuse cases.

 “Only a few media companies and journalists in the country have a sense of ethics [in their reporting about sexual abuse],” Press Council member Zulfiani Lubis said on Wednesday.

“They protect the identity of the victims and avoid using terminology that is offensive to the victims.”

Zulfiani said the council had received an increasing number of complaints on privacy violations involving media reporting on sexual abuse.

“There was only one formal complaint on this issue in 2010. But the number rose to eight last year,” she told reporters at a discussion on the use of ethics to ensure the protection of victims’ privacy in reporting sexual violence, particularly rape. The discussion was held at Komnas Perempuan’s headquarters in Jakarta.

Zulfiani, who is also a chief editor of a national television station, explained that in 2010, an elementary school student in Jakarta, who was a rape victim, had to move to another school because she was bullied by her schoolmates after a local newspaper disclosed her real name in its news report.

She added that similar cases involved two national television stations last year.

“Two out of the eight complaints filed to the council last year involved major national television stations for identifying the real name of a woman who was raped in a minivan in Jakarta, while other complaints involved several online media, which reported a woman being raped in a public transportation vehicle in Jakarta but, at the same time, blaming the woman’s dress for the crime happening,” she said.

Article five of the Indonesian Journalism Ethics Code stipulates that Indonesian journalists shall not identify the victims of sexual crimes in their reports.

It also says that the identity of child perpetrators must not be concealed.

Furthermore, Article nine of the code says that journalists must respect sources’ privacy unless it negatively impacts on the public.

Komnas Perempuan’s deputy chair, Masruchah, said that identity should include all information, including home or school addresses, as well as any information regarding family members that could easily lead the public to identify the victims or child perpetrators.

“Many media reports in the country had failed to meet this,” she said.

She added that some reports had misleadingly led readers to blame victims by describing their physical appearance in detail, as well as the way they dressed.

“There have been reports that described the victims as “sexy” or “physically arousing”. Such news reports can lead people to blame the victims. Don’t judge victims of sexual violence, including rape, for any reason. Sexual violence is a crime no matter what,” she said.

Masruchah said such media reports reflected the media’s distrust of victims and that this was a result of two common but misleading perspectives: first, the women were seen as the ones to have provoked the sexual abuse and second, the women who dared to confess to having been raped were liars.

Such distrust of the victims, she added, had led journalists to pose insensitive questions in interviews, such as how did the victims feel while they were being raped.

“We are asking the media, therefore, to invite experts when they interview [sexual abuse or rape] victims because the experts know how to best interact with them,” she said.

Echoing Masruchah, Zulfiani encouraged media companies to provide training for journalists to equip them with the knowledge and skills to cover sensitive stories, such as rape or violent conflicts. (msa)