T

he National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) has called on the government and all stakeholders to take action over worrying reports of femicide, the killing of females because they are females.

Citing media research, the commission said it had found 15 femicide cases during 2017, of which only five cases had been reported directly to the authorities. The commission said that frequently families were unwilling to report femicide cases. The latest case is the killing of Letty Sultri, a 46-year-old doctor, who is alleged to have been shot dead by her 41-year-old husband, Ryan Helmi, also a doctor.

Letty had previously reported her husband to the police over alleged domestic violence, but she later retracted her report.

“[Law enforcers] should pay more attention to femicide cases, because they can happen because the victims of violence receive no protection, particularly when it comes to domestic violence,” Komnas Perempuan commissioner Adriana Veny Aryani said in a written statement on Tuesday.