The Legal Aid Foundation of the Indonesian Women’s Association for Justice (LBH APIK) said it had received 1,178 reports of violence against women and children in 2020, a spike from 794 reported cases in 2019 and 837 in 2018.

Of last year's cases, 1,080 were reported from March -- when Indonesia announced its first COVID-19 cases and started imposing measures to contain the outbreak -- to November, according to LBH APIK, one of few leading organizations in Indonesia that focus on women's rights advocacy, including for victims of violence.

Domestic violence made up the largest share of the cases with 418 cases, an increase from 249 cases in 2019, followed closely by online gender-based violence with 307 cases.

"Online gender-based violence was on the list of the five most reported cases [in 2020]; it wasn't in the previous year. The rise in cases can be largely attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic as activities were done virtually," Uli Pangaribuan of LBH APIK said during the recent launch of its annual report.

An earlier report by the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) corroborated LBH APIK's findings about rising online gender-based violence during the pandemic. Komnas Perempuan data recorded that 659 cases of online sexual harassment or abuse were reported from January to October last year, more than double the 281 cases reported in 2019.

Read also: Victims of domestic violence struggle to access help during quarantine

Astik Setyowati of the National Police's cyber crime division also said reports of online gender-based violence filed with her office had increased 50 percent during the pandemic.

The reports LBH APIK received last year also include 92 dating violence cases and 80 sexual violence cases. There were also cases of violence against minors -- 16 against girls and five against boys -- as well as 35 cases of children's rights violations last year. The remainder were cases concerning various issues ranging from familial civil affairs, employment and human-trafficking to sexual orientation coercion.

However, only a few of these cases made it to the police and courts. Of the 418 domestic violence cases, only eight had been reported to the police, LBH APIK said. In cases of online gender-based violence, only five had been reported to the police, with two cases being handled by prosecutors and one being processed in court. As for violence against children, only 11 cases had been processed by the police and only four of them had been taken to courts.

Activists and experts have agreed that the underlying problems were law enforcers lacking victim and gender perspectives, knowledge of sexual violence as well as relying on victims to present them with evidence. There had also been cases of law enforcers themselves encouraging victims to simply resort to mediation, Uli said.

Read also: House drops sexual violence eradication bill from this year’s priority list

There was also an issue with victims fearing for their lives and sources of income when reporting the violence to the authorities and also with victims who could not afford to pay for postmortem services, both physical and psychological, especially as most domestic violence cases were psychological.

Only Jakarta had so far paid for physical postmortem services for victims of violence, Uli said, and only its city police had equipment advanced enough to run digital forensics, as regulated by the contentious Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law, to obtain evidence for online violence cases.

But COVID-19 mobility restrictions complicated how abuse victims accessed postmortem services, Uli said, adding that in general there had also been no online alternative to case reporting and processing with the police, and not all police offices had followed COVID-19 health protocols.

"We hope there will be a regulation about [police] online platforms that also record their investigation reports and can be accessed by victims, and also [a regulation about the mechanism] for reporting [abuse] cases [with the police] during the pandemic,” she said.

“It is because police reports have become the absolute requirement for victims to access other services, such as safe houses and legal assistance.”

Read also: LBH APIK raises funds for emergency domestic violence shelters

Government-run safe houses have required victims to provide a police report and a negative COVID-19 test result, which has made it more difficult for them to access these services.

LBH APIK has recorded at least 50 women and children entering independent safe houses throughout the outbreak -- which are easier to access than the government-run safe houses. These emergency shelters are run by civil organizations, which rely on donations.

Valentina Ginting of the Women's Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry was aware that the lack of access to postmortem services had made victims unable to see the end of their cases.

"In 2021, we're disbursing DAK [special allocation funds] to regional administrations [...] so that the people can access free postmortem services," Valentina said. "We'll also build a safe house at a national level.”

The ministry now also has the authority to provide services and assistance to victims of violence, not only in policymaking, following a recently issued presidential regulation.

Valentina, however, was adamant that the ITE Law must be revised and the highly anticipated sexual violence bill, which has been opposed by conservative groups, be passed soon to better accommodate victims.