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Femicide has to be distinguished from normal murder, Rights groups demand
UN Women says that treating femicide as a normal murder could completely annul the gender component of the crime and lead to milder punishments.
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Illustration of violence against women. (Courtesy of/Shutterstock)
W
omen's rights groups have called on the government and the public at large to recognize femicide as a distinct criminal act, arguing that it would lead to better documentation and eventually better prevention of what they describe as "the most extreme form" of gender-based violence.
The call came just days after a 44-year-old woman from Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, died after being burned alive by her abusive partner in front of her four-year-old child on Sunday.
The same day, a 20-year-old college student in Madura, East Java, was killed by her boyfriend because she refused to have an abortion.
Neither case was described as femicide by the police or news reports.
The National Commission on Violence Against Women’s (Komnas Perempuan) deputy chair, Olivia C. Salampessy, said that femicide was the most extreme form of gender-based violence and was not well recognized or documented in Indonesia.
"Femicides are largely regarded as normal murders in the country. So the fact that femicides are most of the time the result of repeated gender-based violence is often ignored in the discourse surrounding the cases," Olivia said in a public discussion on Tuesday.
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