Batam to soon launch raids on unwed couples living together

Fadli, Batam

The Batam municipal government will soon launch a raid against unmarried couples living together.

The plan will be executed in August this year, following the recent order by Batam Mayor Nyat Kadir, said Rayanis Aminah, the spokesman of the Batam social affairs office.

"The raid was supposed to be held in March, but it was delayed to allow information on the raid to be disseminated," said Rayanis.

Without prior information, the government is concerned that the raid would spark public protests, especially from those unmarried couples.

In anticipation of such a scenario, the social office started an information drive in April on the planned raid. The social office informed community and neighborhood units in six out of eight districts in the municipality of the plan, said Rayanis.

"The neighborhood and the community units are expected to convey our message to the residents living in their respective units. We hope that they will inform the residents soon, so that we can immediately proceed with the raid," said Rayanis, without saying precisely when the office would conduct the raid.

Rayanis argued that the raids were lawful under local Bylaw No. 6 on social order.

In the bylaw, couples found living together without a marriage license face a maximum fine of Rp 5 million (US$590.00) and would be married off en masse.

The planned raid is aimed at reducing the number of unmarried couples in Batam, which currently stand at approximately 2,000 couples. Couples living together out of wedlock are regarded as a disturbance to public order in Batam, which follows Malay and Islamic cultural norms.

A physician and also a women's rights activist earlier said that several factors had contributed to the high rate of couples living together out of wedlock.

Evianora Azwar, the physician at the Nongsa community health center here, said that most of the couples were between the ages of 18 and 25 and were sexually active. They usually are migrants with no parents to monitor them, a situation that has led to promiscuity, she said.

There were also 2,000 sex workers operating in Batam, she said. Some of them had become mistresses to Singaporean or Malaysian nationals living about 40 minutes from the city.

They lived in housing complexes or boarding houses around the Nagoya area here.

Azhari Abbas, the chairman of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) in Batam, asked the government to be more serious about the drive. He said that he had heard of the plan about three months ago, but it never materialized.

"There should be no more delay. The huge number of couples living out of the wedlock disturb our community," said Azhari.