W

omen'€™s rights activists have called on the Jakarta Police to continue the legal process against two lawmakers for their alleged abuse of women.

Director of the legal aid foundation of the Indonesian Women'€™s Association for Justice (LBH APIK) Ratna Batara Munti told reporters on Tuesday that her agency had set up an online petition demanding that the police continue the prosecution of House of Representatives member Ivan Haz of the United Development Party (PPP) for allegedly assaulting a domestic worker identified as TPH.

The petition also demanded that the house'€™s ethics council discharge Ivan as a House member, she said.

As of Tuesday, 20,648 people had signed the petition.

Ratna, who went to the National Police'€™s Criminal Investigation Agency (Bareskrim) on Tuesday along with representatives of other NGOs including the National Network for Domestic Worker Advocacy (Jala PRT), and Change.org, said that the law should be enforced to have a deterrent effect and prevent similar occurrences in the future.

Ratna said that the LBH APIK also demanded that the police continue the case against House member Masinton Pasaribu of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) for his alleged assault on his aide Dita Aditia, who later retracted her police report.

'€œA legal report of violence cannot be retracted, as it is not a crime by accusation, unlike adultery. It does not even require victims to file a report for prosecution,'€ she said at the Jakarta Police headquarters.

Ratna believed that Dita had been intimidated into retracting the report.