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BH APIK Bali, an NGO based in Denpasar, Bali, has been using a documentary on polygamy in a Balinese community, Bitter Honey, as a medium for campaigning against violence against women.

Chairwoman of the Bali chapter'€™s Legal Aid Foundation of the Indonesian Women'€™s Association for Justice (LBH APIK), Ni Nengah Budawati, said the film successfully portrayed the reality of what happens in the community and could help viewers identify with the situation.

'€œFrom the first time I watched it, I felt that it would successfully create a fluid ambience, especially among village housewives who are not used to actively participating in a discussion forum,'€ Budawati said after a campaign held at the Wantilan hall of the Bali provincial legislative council building in Denpasar on Friday.

Held in conjunction with the annual 16-day campaign protesting violence against women (HAKTP) from Nov. 25 to Dec. 10, a screening of Bitter Honey was presented followed by a discussion forum presenting a local figure, a provincial councilor and an academic.

Bitter Honey is the latest feature-length documentary from US filmmaker Robert Lemelson and intimately and emotionally presents the stories of three families in Bali, revealing the hidden face of polygamy on the resort island.

As the film says, approximately 10 percent of Balinese families are polygamous. Men in these unions often take multiple brides without their spouses'€™ consent.

Filmed over the course of seven years, the documentary portrays the plight of Balinese co-wives, for whom marriage is frequently characterized by psychological manipulation, infidelity, domestic violence and economic hardship.

'€œThis film is capable of touching the hidden side of women in a polygamous family. The violence shown is very complex,'€ Budawati said.

Separately, in a written remark read out by the film'€™s field producer Ninik Supartini, Robert Lemelson said that as a project and film, Bitter Honey was specifically not an indictment of polygamy as a kinship system.

He expressed hope that the film would raise awareness in the domains of gender-based violence, STD (sexually transmitted diseases) transmission, psychological violence and manipulation and pointed toward some solutions to these problems.

'€œIf it functions to create a positive social change in Bali and elsewhere in Indonesia, we will have done our job as socially conscious scholars, activists and filmmakers,'€ he said.

Meanwhile, Bali provincial councilor Ni Made Sumiati said she had found over 1,000 cases of violence against women, most of which were related to polygamy.

She believed that together, people could fight violence against women.

Sumiati established Tresna Yadnya NGO in 1999, which later became the embryo for the establishment of Sumiati Center in 2009.

'€œThe role of the center will be further developed through the establishment of similar institutions across Bali next month, pushing the provincial administration to allocate funds for, or provide advocacy to, women victimized by violence,'€ she said.