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Jakarta Post

Sexual activity outside marriage ‘should be regulated’

News Desk (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, August 24, 2016

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Sexual activity outside marriage ‘should be regulated’ The Indonesian Criminal Code (KUHP). (kompas.com/Palupi Annisa Auliani)

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xpert witnesses from a group of scholars and activists that requested the revision of three articles (284, 285, and 292) in the Criminal Code (KUHP) on adultery and sodomy defended their standpoints at the Constitutional Court, saying the activities should be categorized as crimes to deter people from doing them.

The group, the Family Love Alliance, claiming to protect the country’s morality, wishes to criminalize all kinds of sexual intercourse between unmarried people and between homosexuals.

The proposed revisions stipulate punishments for married people engaged in sexual activity with partners who are not their spouses and for adults committing sodomy on minors. 

“The revision of the articles will prevent people from having sexual activity outside marriage. Also, if such thing happens in society, members of the public will not act as vigilantes but take it to legal procedures,” Hamid Chalid, constitutional law expert from University of Indonesia, said Tuesday. 

Echoing Hamid, Asrorun Ni’am Sholeh, chairman of Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI), said such revisions were needed as sexual intercourse outside marriage caused unwanted pregnancy and would affect the child who would be humiliated or insulted by society.

“The revision will be a correction to the Criminal Code, which was passed [in 1946],” Atip Latifulhayat, a law expert at Padjadjaran University, said, adding that the law of each country was different concerning such things because of the social norms of a state. (evi)

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