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House races to pass sexual violence bill by December
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What women want: Students and activists from the Women's Antiviolence Movement (GERAK) participate in a rally outside the Education and Culture Ministry in Jakarta on Feb. 10, 2020 to demand deliberation of the sexual violence eradication bill. (JP/Seto Wardhana)
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awmakers are scrambling to get the support needed to push through the sexual violence eradication bill, as some factions are still pushing to include “sexual perversion” and “extramarital sex” in the latest draft.
The House of Representatives' Legislative Body (Baleg) canceled on Thursday the scheduled meeting that would unveil the eventual fate of the bill due to a lack of consensus among political parties.
Willy Aditya, Nasdem Party politician and deputy chairman of the House body that spearheaded the special team deliberating the bill, said that lawmakers were currently still lobbying to get the majority support in order to push through the bill to pass at the next meeting. The date has not been set, but Willy expected it to be next week.
Four factions at the House currently support the bill, with three of them as proposers, namely Nasdem, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the National Awakening Party (PKB), according to Willy. He stopped short of revealing the remaining party.
Willy said that the United Development Party (PPP) and the Golkar Party had previously sent letters to the body asking for more time for deliberation.
Lawmaker John Kenedy Azis from Golkar said that his party in principal supported the bill but did not want to rush the process because the bill still lacked elements of prevention of sexual violence.
“There were many inputs from almost all factions regarding the shortcomings of the draft that we received,” John told The Jakarta Post on Thursday. “Why do we need to rush it? We want a good and proper law, which can protect all people."
