Women Being Beaten in Record Numbers, Report States

The Jakarta Globe, Ismira Lutfia, March 9, 2009 

Indonesian woman are coming forward with allegations of domestic and economic violence and sexual harassment in record numbers, the National Commission on Violence Against Women said during the weekend. 

The commission, or Komnas Perempuan, recorded 54,425 cases of such incidents against women in 2008, a 113 percent increase on 2007’s figure of 25,522 cases. Some 90 percent of the cases against women involved domestic violence and 52 percent of the total number of cases were considered “economic violence” — a category which included women being left economically vulnerable, financially neglected by their husbands or having their own economic opportunities stifled. 

The victims were mainly girlfriends, wives or female domestic workers, with the bulk of the incidents occurring on Java Island, the commission said in its 2008 year-end review. 

Also of concern were new figures that showed 784 of the total number of cases involved perpetrators from the Indonesian Armed Forces, or TNI, National Police officers, heads of districts, government officials, educators and even legislators. 

The commission’s review states that a legislator from the Democratic Party of Struggle, or PDI-P, initialled MM, who sexually harassed his secretary, initialled DF, as “the most sensational case in 2008.” 

On Aug. 24, the Honorary Council of the House of Representatives expelled PDI-P legislator Max Moein for sexually harassing his secretary, Desy Vidyawati. 

The review said the victim had been harassed since 2005, which showed that sexual harassment could occur anywhere, including government institutions, and by anybody, including government officials. 

“This breaks the myth that sexual violence is only carried out by less-educated people,” the report states, adding that such cases often occurred when the perpetrators held more powerful positions than the victims. 

The commission called on the government to improve its monitoring of public officials and educators’ conduct toward their female subordinates, who were at risk of violence and sexual harassment. 

“Starting with this year’s report, we specifically included public officials as their own category among perpetrators,” Azriana, the commission’s recovery system development head, said, adding that this move was to enhance public awareness of the issue as the nation prepares to head into national elections. 

Arimbi Heroepoetri, the commission’s monitoring head, said the leap in recorded cases for 2008 was in part due to better access to information. “We had easier access to data from the courts, so there could have been more cases recorded because of that,” Arimbi said, adding that the majority of the incidents recorded, 35,398 cases, were in Java.