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Lawmakers push conservative agenda through family resilience bill
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Gender equality illustration (Shutterstock/File)
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group of lawmakers have initiated a so-called family resilience bill that critics say is designed to push a conservative agenda in the world's largest Muslim-majority country.
One controversial provision regulates a rigid role for husbands and wives, in an apparent setback to gender-mainstreaming efforts in the country over the past two decades -- which gained traction following the issuing of a Presidential Instruction (Inpres) on gender mainstreaming in 2000.
Article 25 of the bill stipulates that wives are obliged to "take care of household affairs properly", in addition to maintaining the household's unity and serving her family members well. Meanwhile, the husband's duties are confined to supporting and protecting the family.
Another of the bill's controversial articles aims to eliminate "sexual deviation", which, the bill says, is a threat to family resilience. The bill defines sexual deviation as the "urge to achieve sexual satisfaction through unusual and unreasonable ways, which include sadism, masochism, incest and homosexuality."
A state institution responsible for family resilience would be required to handle "family crises due to sexual deviation" through spiritual guidance and social, psychological and medical rehabilitation.
"This conservative bill aims to restore outdated and irrelevant values," Ratna Batara Munti, an activist from the Network of Pro-Women's National Legislation Program (JKP3), said on Wednesday, adding that the bill would go too far in regulating Indonesians’ private lives, should the bill pass into law.
She said that a large number of Indonesian women acted as breadwinners and the main earners for their families. Thus, limiting their role to taking care of household affairs would essentially cut off their means of livelihood.
