Abused children face lack of medical and legal protection
By Santi W.E. Soekanto
Unquestionably, it would be easy to find more pleasant themes to write about to mark National Children's Day. In the following couple of articles, however, we deliberately choose to spotlight the question of child abuse as a reminder that some darker sides to the lives of children still exist in this country.
JAKARTA (JP): "My eldest sister helped her husband rape me when I was 12," Lina said, tears swimming in her eyes. "My breast hadn't developed, I hadn't even had my period yet."
Recounting, for the first time, the abuse she experienced at the hands of the people she trusted most, Lina (not her real name) could not help wonder at her ability to endure life.
"My sister bribed me, offering anything to me, stroking my cheeks while holding my hands tightly so that her husband could freely take me," Lina said.
Lina said she could not tell her mother, who placed her in the care of the elder sister so that Lina could continue her education, because "she would have dropped dead".
In hindsight, though, Lina suspected that her widowed mother might have sensed that something horrible was going on but chose not to rock the boat. "Perhaps she just could not handle it," Lina said wistfully, "So I had no one to turn to."
Lina survived the months of ordeal but has never stopped wishing that she was dead at the time. Chain-smoking her way through her story, she described how she thought children who died in many violent circumstances were "luckier" than she was.
"At least they're dead and don't have to suffer any longer," she said. "I'm alive, and the pain just won't go away, gnawing at me unceasingly."
Lina, a petite woman in her late thirties, is now married and has four children. "But that's because I was lucky enough to find a man who would accept me, a 'damaged good'," she said, her laughter filled with bitterness.
Lina said she has stopped blaming her elder sister. She was so insecure in her marriage that she quickly agreed to the man's demand for Lina's body in exchange for his promise that he would not walk out on her. Lina, though, has never stopped punishing or blaming herself for enduring the horror silently.
"Even now I can't really enjoy life. I often bleed after having sex, so I try to avoid it altogether, and my husband has been living like a hermit."
Neglected terrain
Horrifying as it is, Lina's story is not unique. She is only one among nobody knows how many victims of physical, sexual and psychological abuse, as well as neglect and deprivation.
Eva (also not her real name), a young woman in her early twenties, was a victim of incest committed by her much older brother when she was five. She still cannot forgive her brother, or her parents for not noticing what went on. She cannot forgive herself, either.
"I must have been a very bad girl to have this thing happened to me," she said sadly. "I feel like I'm so dirty, that I can't face God and say my prayers. I'm through being angry at God for letting this happen to me and I want to be able to come closer to Him, but I just can't."
Teenaged Supriyatna was punished, sometimes beaten, by his stepfather if he failed to come home with a certain sum of money from selling the newspapers.
He started earning his keep in his twice married mother's household when he was seven and saw his younger brother, Atin, die of infections and malnutrition. He cried when he recounted how much he missed his little brother who used to tag along when Supriyatna peddled the papers.
The stories of Lina, Eva and Supriyatna show that children between the ages of one and 15, nearly 40 percent of the country's population of 185 million, are often the most defenseless victims of adults and society. As Lina says, the children don't always know where to turn for help and therefore suffer in silence.
Sometimes society is so deaf that it doesn't hear even if the children are able to cry for help. Their stories have not been told often enough to elicit people's attention. Despite growing concern, the problem of child abuse is perhaps one of the most neglected terrains.
Report
The Center for Information of Children at the Foundation for the Welfare of Indonesian Children stated in a 1993 report that in 1992, 43 infants were murdered, mostly by their own mothers who were ashamed of having babies out of wedlock.
These cases, quoted in a book entitled Anak dan Kejahatan (Children and Crime, 1993), were included only because they made the press. The center did not give estimates as to the actual rate of infanticides.
The report went on to say that 58 children in 1992 were murdered in crimes perpetrated by 60 people, mostly adults.
Between January and November of the same year, the press reported 63 cases of sexual abuse involving 100 victims under the age of 13. One case involved 11 children who were raped by one adult male. Most of the offenders were people close to the children, such as the father or the grandfather.
Kalyanamitra, a leading women's group, gave an even bleaker picture when it reported in November 1992 that 151 cases of child rape occurred in that year alone.
Ironically, the community, which should have the ability to protect the children, may not be able to do much. Cases of abuse may go undetected because various constraints prevent physicians or pediatricians from detecting or identifying victims.
Among the reasons is that not all abused children are brought to medical attention; even if they are, not all doctors are trained to be sensitive to the signs that indicate abuse.
Most medical experts agree that the signs of abuse include repeated injuries, unusual reactions to injuries, delay in reporting accidents, burns, black eyes, bruises with finger marks on the head and face, rib fractures due to excessive shaking, and multiple injuries.
Even with the presence of some of the signs, however, the small ratio of doctors serving the population may make them too busy and perhaps too harried to notice.
Unjust justice
When it comes to legal protection, the battered children do not fare any better. Indonesia does not recognize mandatory reporting for cases where abuse is suspected, according to legal expert Dr. Harkristuti Harkrisnowo from the University of Indonesia.
In countries such as the United States and Malaysia, where a mandatory reporting stipulation is applied, doctors, teachers or other people who suspect that abuse may be occurring must lodge a report with social workers or other authorities.
"We can't apply it here, it won't be effective," Harkrisnowo told The Jakarta Post, citing society's inclination to view children as belonging to parents and that parents therefore have ultimate power over them, as the most obvious obstacles.
"People think that whatever happens inside a house is the business of its occupants," she said. "Besides, abusive parents can always say that it's their own children they're beating."
Likewise for the sexual abuse of children. Harkrisnowo cited a case in which the judge ruled that the perpetrator was not guilty of rape because "the victim's hymen was not ruptured".
"Her virginity is still intact, she's still a virgin," the judge was quoted as ruling by Harkrisnowo.
"This is not a matter of a ruptured or non-ruptured hymen," Harkrisnowo lashed out. "A rape is still a rape, a torture of both the child's body and psyche."
Criminologist Suziani wrote in an essay in Anak dan Kejahatan that children who are raped have fallen into what she calls "structural victimization".
"As females, the girls are victims of male offenders; as children, they are victims of adults; as members of society, they are victims of the patriarchal structure of society," Suziani said.
She suggested that crises centers for children be established immediately, incorporating the expertise of pediatricians, psychologists, criminologists and lawyers. She also called for balanced press reports which will not contribute to the stigma already faced by sexually abused children.
Harkrisnowo called for harsher punishments for child abusers and molesters, and for stronger campaigns against the violation. She also suggested that efforts to sensitize the community toward the abuse problem begin with teachers and religious leaders.
She warned that bruises may soon heal, but the psychological damage very often stays with the victims for the rest of their lives.