Many Indonesians’ perception of rape is limited to the traditional definition of a stranger grabbing the victim, physically restraining her, raping her and running away. Given this narrow definition, there is no justice for those women who fall victim to other types of sexual violence, and the perpetrators enjoy impunity. The House of Representatives has initiated a bill on the eradication of sexual violence, which has made it onto the National Legislation Program (Prolegnas) this year. The bill seeks to broaden the definition of sexual violence to ensure better protection for women. With this urgent matter taking center stage, The Jakarta Post’s Evi Mariani looks into forms of sexual violence that remain unclassified as crimes.

When survivor Kelly (not her real name) saw her rapist’s name in the byline of an article on the front page of a national newspaper, she asked herself how he could be a successful journalist while she could not even type, so severe were the tremors in her hands.

“How good his life is, and how miserable mine!” she wrote in her diary.

In Indonesia, as in many parts of the world, victims of sexual violence often have their lives turned upside down, while perpetrators enjoy impunity.

In the US two years ago, the adopted daughter of renowned director Woody Allen, Dylan Farrow, wrote an open letter accusing her father of sexually assaulting her when she was seven.

“That he got away with what he did to me haunted me as I grew up,” she wrote. “I was stricken with guilt that I had allowed him to be near other little girls.”

Allen has never been charged for the alleged crimes, and his representative insisted the claims made in Dylan’s letter were untrue.

Dylan said in her letter that she had suffered eating disorders and engaged in self-harm as a result of her traumatic childhood; Kelly, similarly, suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, resulting in
tremors, sleepless nights and self-isolation. She has permanently lost her appetite and can no longer work.

Kelly said her rapist had married and had a daughter. Now, she wants him to be punished for his crime. She recently filed her case to the Legal Aid Foundation of the Indonesian Women’s Association for Justice (LBH Apik) and the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan).

Many Indonesians, however, would not consider her case to be rape. The rapist was not a stranger, the rape happened more than once and it happened three years ago.

“The first thing the police would ask her would be, ‘Why file a report now?’ The second question would be, ‘Why did you let it happen several times?’” Lidwina Inge Nurtjahyo, a lecturer at University of Indonesia’s (UI) law school and the head of the women and children’s law clinic at the university, told the Post.

The Indonesian legal system has difficulties in recognizing rape within a power relationship gained through manipulation and psychological threats. Even rape cases using physical threats can be dropped by the police on a lack of evidence and witnesses.

A sexual assault case implicating poet Sitok Srengenge against UI student RW, for example, came up against obstacles because the police demanded proof and witnesses. RW’s lawyer, Iwan Pangka, reported the case not as rape (Article 285) but as a violation of Article 335 of the Criminal Code (KUHP), which says anyone found guilty of forcing another person to do anything by means of threats of violence is subject to a maximum sentence of a year in prison.

After 11 months of investigations and public pressure, the police in October 2014 named Sitok a suspect for violating Article 335. The case has yet to see progress.

A 2012-2013 masculinity study carried out by women’s crisis center Rifka Annisa in Yogyakarta, in cooperation with UN Women and Partners for Prevention in Bangkok, revealed staggering figures of impunity and male entitlement to sexual violence.

The study was conducted in three cities: Jakarta to represent a major city, Purworejo in Central Java to represent a smaller town and Jayapura in Papua to represent eastern Indonesia.

Male surveyors interviewed 2,577 men aged between 18 and 49 about their experience of committing sexual violence; answers were entered electronically to ensure truthfulness to sensitive questions.

In Jakarta, 24.1 percent respondents said they had, in their lifetime, raped their spouse; in Purworejo the figure was 17.9 percent, while in Papua it was 43.8 percent. In Jakarta, 29.4 percent answered they had sexually assaulted their spouse, in Purworejo 22.3 percent and in Papua 49.2 percent.

When the questions broadened to rape of spouses and women other than spouses, the figures increased to 26.2 percent in Jakarta, 19.5 percent in Purworejo and 48.64 percent in Papua.

The motivations given were equally shocking: Only 9.7 percent, 9.2 percent and 23.8 percent, respectively, of respondents in Jakarta, Purworejo and Papua said they had committed rape because they were intoxicated, while 75.7 percent in Jakarta said they had done so because they felt entitled and 29.7 percent said they had wanted to “have fun”.

In total, 46.9 percent of the respondents in the three cities who had admitted to sexual violence said they had suffered no consequences for their actions, while only 21.5 percent said the consequences had been of a legal nature. Most — 74.2 percent — professed to feelings of guilt over their actions, and 58.2 percent said they were afraid of being exposed.

The figures showed that the respondents felt entitled to sexual violence and that legal repercussions were the exception rather than the rule; indeed, around a quarter did not even feel guilty about their actions.

Inge of the UI School of Law said that public perceptions about what constitutes sexual consent were too broad. “Is freezing consent? She did not say no, but she has frozen. In the US, the Supreme Court made a progressive decision, that not saying anything and not putting up a physical fight does not mean consent,” she said.

Siti Mazuma from LBH Apik, which serves as Kelly’s legal counsel, said that if Kelly had consented, as the perpetrator may have claimed, she would not have experienced bleeding. Kelly suffered recurrent anal bleeding for two years after the rape.

Inge and Mazuma agreed that proof should be allowed to take the form of psychological as well as physical scars. The legal system does officially allow for two forensics examinations: physical and psychological, but in practice, police and prosecutors are reluctant to use psychological evidence.

“Victims’ lives can never be the same again. Some of them even have to move out of their homes,” Mazuma said.

In cases in which victims have an unequal power relation with the perpetrator, they often do not even realize they have been assaulted or raped, and continue in the abusive relationship, suffering repeated sexual violence. Kelly was sexually assaulted repeatedly over a period of months, the abuse only ending once the perpetrator married another woman. It was not until some time later that a stranger she knew from Facebook told her in a chat that what had happened to her was in fact rape.

Mazuma spoke of a case in which the perpetrator had assaulted the victim more than 30 times and impregnated her; the victim gave birth, and the perpetrator refused to take responsibility. “She did not want the relationship,” she said.

Komnas Perempuan chair Azriana said the commission had worked closely with the House of Representatives to formulate the bill on the eradication of sexual violence. The bill initially listed 15 forms of sexual violence, which were later whittled down to nine.

“It was not a case of reducing [the number of forms], but of making them more compact. For example, we had ‘sexual control’ among the 15 but later we realized that [sexual control] was an element in all types of violence,” she said.

Komnas also took out traditional beliefs that violate women’s bodies, such as female circumcision, believing that campaigning against such practices was better than legal action.

Azriana said the bill did not explicitly mention “power relations”, but did elaborate such relations.

The bill lists one type of sexual violence as sexual exploitation in which perpetrators bait victims with lies, persuasion, promises to marry the victim and conditioning the victim to be in a subordinate position. In such circumstances, despite the apparent giving of consent, the lies or coercion constitute a form of sexual violence, according to the bill.

The bill also aims to ensure victims receive restitutions, ranging from physical and psychological therapy to pecuniary compensation.

“President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo is particularly concerned with restitutions and healing for victims in the bill,” Azriana said.

Last month, Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Minister Yohana Susana Yembise said the bill, which has been included in the 2016 Prolegnas, was desperately needed to tackle the growing number of cases of sexual violence against women and children.

“The House will deliberate the bill this year and it will certainly be a tough deliberation. This is something people have considered normal for a very long time, so debunking it, changing the paradigm, will be a major challenge,” Azriana said.

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