Sexual violence law passes amid growing cases
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia’s Parliament approved a far-reaching law on Tuesday that sets punishments for sexual violence after being spurred into action by a recent case in which an Islamic boarding school principal raped and impregnated several students.
The legislation had languished for years amid arguments that it contravenes religious and cultural values in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority nation.
The law recognizes men and children can be victims of sexual violence. Indonesia’s Criminal Code, a legacy of the Dutch colonial era, recognizes only rape and lewd crimes committed by men against women and doesn’t have provisions for restitution or other remedies for victims and survivors.
Nine forms of sexual violence are recognized in the law: physical and nonphysical sexual harassment, sexual torture, forced contraception, forced sterilization, forced marriage, sexual slavery, sexual exploitation and cyber sexual harassment.
In addition to acknowledging sexual violence as punishable criminal acts, the law has provisions for protection and recovery for the victims.
Of the House of Representative’s nine political parties, only the conservative Muslim-based Prosperous Justice Party rejected the bill because they wanted it to prohibit extramarital sex and homosexual relations.
The law was passed a week after an Indonesian high court sentenced an Islamic boarding school principal to death for raping at least 13 students over five years and impregnating some of them. Several girls were 11 and 14 years old and were raped over several years, drawing a public outcry over why he wasn’t caught earlier.
President Joko Widodo in January appealed to the House to speed up deliberation on the sexual violence bill after it had languished in the legislature since 2016 as critics lambasted lawmakers for having “no sense of crisis.”
Under the new law, perpetrators of electronic-based sexual violence could face up to 4 years’ imprisonment and a $13,920 fine, and up to 6 years and a $20,880 if it was carried out with the aim of extorting, coercing and deceiving victims. Perpetrators of sexual exploitation face up to 15 years in prison and a fine of $69,600.
The law also mandates that a trust fund and services to help victims recover be established and regulated by the government.
Government data shows at least 797 children became victims of sexual violence in January alone. The total number of reported child victims reached 8,730 in 2021, rising 25% from 2020. As of 2020, there were 45,069 recorded cases of sexual violence against girls and women since the drafting of the bill in 2012.