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Lawmakers push conservative agenda through family resilience bill
A 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
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span>A 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"This conservative bill aims to restore outdated and irrelevant values," Ratna Batara Munti, an activist from the Network of Pro-Women's National Legislation Program (JKP3), said on Wednesday, adding that the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.
Data collected by the World Bank in 2018 shows that more than half of the country's female working-age population, around 50.7 percent, participate in the workforce. They work in both the formal and informal sectors, from unskilled to skilled workers, and from being housemaids to lawmakers, to support their respective families.
The National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) said that this conservative perspective usually placed women as "victims" by ignoring the concept of gender equality.
"Both husband and wife should collaborate in creating a healthy family unit. Gender equality is the key," Komnas Perempuan commissioner Mariana Amiruddin said, adding that gender equality provided access to resources and opportunities for both sexes.
Both JKP3 and Komnas Perempuan demanded that the bill be removed from the House of Representatives' 2020 priority bills, arguing that family issues are already well regulated in various prevailing laws, including the 1974 Marriage Law, the 2002 Child Protection Law and the 2004 Domestic Violence Eradication Law.
"If something needs to be added, just improve the existing regulations," Mariana said.
The family resilience bill was initiated by five politicians from several factions in the House. Three of them are women: Endang Maria Astuti from the Golkar Party, and Ledia Hanifa and Netty Prasetiyana, both from the Islam-based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS). The two others are Sodik Mudjahid from the Gerindra Party and Ali Taher from the National Mandate Party (PAN).
The two Muslim-based parties — PAN and PKS — are well-known for their conservative points of view. The latter has even rejected the much-awaited bill to eliminate sexual violence, saying it has a "liberal perspective by promoting free sex and the LGBT [the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender]" community, while in fact the bill aims to root out sexual violence.
Endang argued that the bill was needed to "restore the [traditional] functions of husband and wife, which have been eroded by modernity."
Many modern women, she said, were too consumed with the gender-equality concept, which consequently made them feel more powerful than their male partners. "We want to simply return [women's roles] to the way they should be."
Sodik claimed that all the proposed provisions in the bill aimed to provide protection and empower families as the basic social unit.
"Ethics, morals and behaviors start with families. That’s why we must strengthen families, including by protecting them from such things [modernity],” he said.
He also argued that sexuality was not a private matter and that homosexuality had the potential to destroy the concept of family.
The proposed provision on rehabilitation for homosexuals, he said, was based on the values of state ideology Pancasila, which, according to his interpretation, is opposed to homosexuality.
