As quoted in this newspaper, netizens promptly offered to define “complicated” or “difficult”.

Yacko, an Indonesian musician, rapped in her video, “Difficult is when a rape victim sees a doctor or a police officer but is asked, ‘Do you pray five times a day?’”

As of Sunday, 111 organizations and networks and more than 30 individuals signed a petition demanding that Baleg include the sexual violence bill in this year’s priority list. Despite all the work done to advance the bill, which was started by the former batch of lawmakers, the signatories said much more support was needed.  

They urged the political parties, the House’s Women’s Parliamentary Caucus and the nation’s first female House speaker, Puan Maharani, to ensure the bill’s timely deliberation.

Over the past few years, demands for the passage of the sexual violence bill have intensified as reports of sexual abuse inside and outside the home have continued, including at the workplace, in public spaces, on campus and in the supposedly safe environs of houses of worship and religious schools. Victims who mustered enough courage to report their cases found their nightmares reduced to charges of “indecent behavior” by the alleged perpetrators, as the Criminal Code recognizes only forced penile penetration as sexual violence.

The bill contains an unprecedented state recognition of nonconsensual relations and sexual violence because of “imbalanced power and/or gender relations”. It provides nine definitions of sexual violence beyond the limited definitions in the Criminal Code and Child Protection Law.

In addition to rape and harassment, the crimes would also include sexual torture, forced abortion, forced prostitution, sexual exploitation, forced marriage, forced use of contraceptives and sexual slavery.

For those who have dared to report their cases, even reaching the courts is a rare feat. Some 20 altar boys at a church in Depok – whose parents reported sexual abuse by a superior in 2014 – saw the alleged perpetrator not fired but promoted to a higher position in the church.

Let’s use this outrage to multiply the pressure on the House to pass the bill into law and to energize the activists and experts who must fine-tune the draft while taking note of feedback, including from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and Islamic organizations such as Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). With more than 100 million collective members throughout Indonesia, the nation’s biggest Muslim groups have stated their support for the bill, albeit with considerable reservations.

The challenges include accusations from both within and outside the House that the bill violates Islam, as its definition of rape includes nonconsensual intercourse between a husband and wife. Activists say the battle for the law will be long but that first, the bill needs to be on the House priority list.

The COVID-19 pandemic and other distractions have drowned out victims’ voices.

To support the altar boys, nearly 200 members of the Indonesian Catholic Women (WKRI) organization have demanded an investigation. The women, just a handful of thousands of members of the WKRI, were reportedly inspired by an apostolic letter released by Pope Francis last year that stated there would be no tolerance for attempts to cover up sexual crimes. But clearly much wider support is needed for such a rare challenge to the Catholic Church in Indonesia.

Last December Warta Minggu, a weekly publication by the Tomang Catholic parish in West Jakarta, quoted an official from the Indonesian Bishops Conference (KWI), saying that the KWI had received reports from at least 56 sexual abuse victims in the country.

Pope Francis’ decree followed scores of such new and old reports. Some 3,000 priests in many different countries were reportedly involved in such crimes, according to a Holy See investigation from 2001 to 2010, some of which date back 50 years.

That such heinous crimes persist in Indonesia shows how patriarchy protects predators in so-called religious societies. More widespread religious values would surely mean less acceptance of pedophiles in holy robes.

Even in the capital, reports of sexual abuse by a Muslim cleric of about a dozen of his santri (students) remain unresolved since 2012, despite the fact that the Jakarta police launched an investigation. Recent reports include allegations that a high-achieving graduate from the Indonesian Islamic University who won an Australian government scholarship to study in Melbourne had sexually abused 30 women.

To prevent more victims and seek redress for current ones, activists, mainly from the women’s movement, say they are continuing to work with cooperative lawmakers, hoping to beat the odds and repeat the historical passage of the 2004 Domestic Violence Law. But there is a much stronger conservative and patriarchy-friendly tendency today than 16 years ago.

Legal experts must carefully study all reservations, while campaigners could make people aware of the historic 2017 fatwa by mostly women ulema that stated, “Sexual violence in its forms outside or within wedlock is haram because it violates human rights that are guaranteed in Islam.”

The first Congress of Indonesian Women Ulema (KUPI) denounced interpretations of Islamic teachings that they said had been abused to justify male dominance to extreme levels.

 Female leaders of Islamic boarding schools and leaders of the women’s wings of Muhammadiyah and NU are seeking to address the “sexual violence emergency”. This has contributed, no doubt, to their organizations’ basic acceptance of the bill.

If passed, the law’s enforcement will still be inhibited by apologetic attitudes toward practices such as domestic violence, child marriage, the encouragement of rapists to marry their victims without any punishment and forced marriages accepted in the name of tradition, as in recent reports from the Sasak community in West Nusa Tenggara.

Without repeated condemnation of the sexual abuse of children and adults and stronger laws against such crimes, perpetrators will carry on with impunity – at the most getting off with a rap on the knuckles or a mild rebuke.

Passing the sexual violence bill would move Indonesia closer to zero tolerance of anyone abusing their power to satisfy their lust. Today, it is hard to say we are fully civilized while victims and survivors continue to battle their fears amid roaming sexual predators.

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Freelance journalist.