“I will tell you as much as I can about myself, but please do not publish it,” said the woman with gray hair I met about six years ago. She had been accused of being a member of Gerwani (the women’s wing of the Indonesian Communist Party/PKI) at the end of 1965 and as a result, was imprisoned, tortured and raped repeatedly.

She was not the only one. Many women still conceal their pain because of the shame and stigma, the risk of being labeled a liar, and the possible repercussions for not only themselves, but also their families.

It was no wonder that during the International People’s Tribunal on the 1965 genocide in The Hague, the female witnesses all decided to speak from behind a curtain, hiding their faces, and using pseudonyms.

But not all female survivors of the 1965 genocide are secretive about their personal experience. Some have revealed their experience of persecution, many of which include rape and torture. Despite the strong evidence (scars, medical evidence, documents and cross-investigation), the accounts of these female survivors continue to be questioned and even looked upon with disdain and contempt.

Decades after the mass murder of alleged communists and left-wing sympathizers, its victims are still unable to tell their personal accounts without risk. What does this say about the legacy of the New Order regime?

Soeharto stepped down, but his cronies remain. The 1998 reforms only ousted one person and have failed to change the regime’s legacy.

In a more democratic and fair country, the case of that woman I met may have ended up at court to bring the perpetrators to justice; she may even have been compensated for the crimes against humanity that befell her. But that was certainly not what she expected.

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