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Not silent anymore: Sexual abuse victims speak up for justice
Kartika Jahja had been silent for more than 25 years until she became determined to come out as a victim of sexual abuse she endured as a 6-year-old girl
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span>Kartika Jahja had been silent for more than 25 years until she became determined to come out as a victim of sexual abuse she endured as a 6-year-old girl.
For a quarter of a century she had been haunted by fears that sharing her depressing past might backfire, that people may put the blame on her and get the wrong perception about her.
Her story was about her being sexually abused for more than a year by someone who lived with her family, as she was a child and she did not know that what he did to her was a crime.
Now a musician and feminist, Kartika started to view the world from a different perspective in 2010 when she got along with women rights activists and fellow sexual violence victims.
Three years later, in 2013, she mustered enough courage to reveal her traumatic past in an interview with The Jakarta Post with the aim of encouraging others to speak out, lighten their mental burden and know that they were not alone.
“The more often I share my sufferings openly, the lighter my burden becomes and the rape stigma is more bearable,” the 38-year-old said.
After she had her story published, some sexual abuse victims contacted her, asking her for advice.
“Then, I started to learn to be a counselor for rape victims,” said Kartika, who is better known as the vocalist of the music band Tika and the Dissidents.
Last Saturday, she appeared as a speaker at a discussion held after the screening of a film on sexual abuse at the Legal Aid Foundation of Indonesian Women’s Association for Justice’s (LBH APIK) office in Kramat Jati, East Jakarta.
Dozens of people, mostly women, flocked to the place and watched the documentary entitled Jalan Masih Panjang (Still a long way to go), produced by LBH APIK in cooperation with the WatchdoC production house.
The 20-minute film tells about two female rape survivors, Pelangi and Matahari — pseudonyms — and a victim of domestic violence, Isma Gunawan, striving for justice.
Pelangi experienced sexual assault in 2014 perpetrated by four male employees of the city-owned bus company Transjakarta. Pelangi was sexually assaulted when she was having an asthma attack while traveling on a Transjakarta bus from Cempaka Putih to Harmoni in Central Jakarta. Her attackers were convicted and sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment.
Matahari was a mentally disturbed rape victim. She was assaulted by her schoolteacher in 2016 and she became pregnant. The court found the teacher guilty and handed down a nine-year prison term.
The short film also tells the story of Isma, 66, a former housewife who experienced domestic violence. She ended up being divorced by her husband. The incident occurred before a 2004 law on the elimination of domestic violence was enforced. Isma is now a paralegal at LBH APIK.
The documentary intends to encourage victims to speak up about the sexual violence they experienced and seek justice through the courts. Only by doing so would they get help and justice they deserve, it contends.
“They need to know that they’re not alone. To make such a move is not simple. However, we can together fight for justice,” LBH APIK director Siti Mazuma told the Post.
The group has reported an increasing number of cases of sexual and domestic violence. Last year, it received 837 gender-violence-related complaints, a 29 percent spike from the previous year.
Throughout 2018, most of the cases it handled concerned domestic violence, followed by family disputes, relationship abuse, labor conflicts and sexual violence.
In that year, LBH APIK recorded 65 cases of sexual violence — 29 of those involving children. Some of the cases remain unresolved and the authorities have stopped processing them.
LBH APIK is calling on the House of Representatives to endorse the long-awaited sexual violence bill, citing urgency for protecting women from sexual violence and providing a more comprehensive legal basis needed to treat sexual violence victims.
Deliberated over since 2016, the bill’s fate is uncertain after the Islamist Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) rejected it.
The bill was proposed after the gang rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl in Bengkulu in 2016, a case that sparked public outrage. (das)
