Many victims of abuse seek help in a broken condition and with a crushed self-esteem and it is sometimes hard for those who want to help them to understand the victims’ indecision or inconsistency in pursuing justice.

Lawyer Kamal Firdaus has so far received the confidence of two students who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of their lecturers at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta.

He wanted to help them but he confessed he was sometimes puzzled by their inconsistency.

“One day she was optimistic and wanted to pursue the case, another day she sympathized with her abuser,” he said.

As a lawyer, he has a high level of understanding of legal intricacies, but is not as astute when it comes to psychological complexity. “It is not only a legal matter, there are many personal issues that cause difficulties for the victims,” he told The Jakarta Post.

Bagia Arif Saputra, a counselor at not-for-profit psychological counseling service for the abused, Yayasan Pulih, said sometimes friends with good intentions could not understand the complex problems of someone who is in an abusive relationship. “They press their friend to end the relationship and when she doesn’t they blame her,” said Bagia, who is also a volunteer at New Men Alliance (ALB).

“But your friend already has a low self-esteem, mental dysfunction, and has had her self-concept destroyed,” he added.

Maria, a survivor of sexual harassment at the hands of her lecturer at UGM, for example, did not immediately report the harassment she experienced despite the urging of her friends. “My friends did not understand why I didn’t report it immediately, but it was not that easy.” It took her a year before she finally made a report.

Camila Bani Alawia, who wrote her undergraduate thesis on the absence of legal protection for victims of dating violence for the University of Indonesia’s (UI) School of Law last year, found one informant who eventually married her abusive boyfriend after about five years in a relationship. For her thesis, Camila interviewed six women who mostly stayed in abusive relationships for about five years.

One woman, named as Lily in the thesis, was raped by her boyfriend when she was still very young and a virgin. Her family initially wanted to settle the case between the two families but they later pursued legal channels after the perpetrator threatened to distribute nude photos of Lily.

 They eventually dropped the report after Lily experienced a downward psychological spiral during the police investigation, in which the doctor who examined her said that her hymen had been “used up”, accusing her of having sexual intercourse a lot. The doctor also asked her which high school she went to, and when she replied, the doctor said: Ah, that school, no wonder.

 The head of UI's women and children law clinic and a lecturer at the university's law school, Lidwina Inge Nurtjahjo, said that legal counselors to sexual abuse victims should present their client with a “road map” and accompany her all the way psychologically. “The road is long and difficult,” she said.

The victim’s parents also have to be strong in their support, Inge said. “The victim will be summoned several times by the police,” Inge said. Even if the investigators are sensitive to victims, it can be hard to repeat their stories in detail.

Saras Dewi, a lecturer at the School of Humanities at UI and the counselor of a woman who was allegedly sexually assaulted by poet Sitok Srengenge, said that the woman reached her lowest point in the middle of police investigation.

“We have to listen to victims. It is very difficult for victims to report, they are scared to report,” Saras said. When victims did report, they sometimes wavered in the middle of the process, she said.

The abuse also created personal trauma and complex mental state. Some victims even experienced Stockholm Syndrome in which the victims sympathized with their abuser and did not want to see them suffer because of their reports.

At this point it is easy for perpetrators to claim the relationship was consensual. They do not use physical coercion but mental manipulation, which makes it more difficult for victims to explain that the relationship was not exactly consensual.

“There are some patterns to the manipulation when predators approach potential victims. Some take on the role of a father figure, some as a discerning friend ready to listen to problems, some take on the role of a heroic figure for the victims,” Inge of UI’s School of Law said.

Indiah Wahyu Andari from women’s crisis center Rifka Annisa said victims were not powerless in the beginning but they “learn to be disempowered.”

Multiple abuse chips away at their self-concept or motivation, their capacity to regulate emotion and cognitive capacity. “I have seen a victim who cannot fully understand simple orders like photocopying documents,” Indiah said. “When the abuse is severe, some can develop mental illness.”

Many students fail or see a decrease in their marks after experiencing abuses. UI’s academic counseling service often finds that lower achievement means problems at home or with friends, or being in an unhealthy relationship.

Emotional scars are not visible, but “they can be deep,” Bagia said. “If your friends experience abuse, don’t blame them, they need time to process.”

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