Criminal Code lacks protection for women

JAKARTA (JP): A legal expert said Saturday that the country's Criminal Code does not adequately protect victims of domestic violence.

"In fact, there is an article in the law which considers a wife the property of the husband," Nursyahbani Kacasungkana, director of the Association of Indonesian Women for Justice, said during a discussion on women, violence and harassment.

Article 285 of the Criminal Code contains a clause dealing with rape, which states that a man who forcibly has intercourse with a woman who is not his wife faces a maximum of 12 years in prison if found guilty.

The clause indicates that a woman's legal rights are gone after she gets married, she said.

By including the term "outside of marriage", the law does not recognize marital rape, let alone domestic violence, said Nursyahbani, a former director of the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute.

However, she said, there is hope of more legal protection for women as the term "outside of marriage" is not included in the draft of the new national criminal code.

The new bill was drafted in 1993, but has yet to be sent to the House of Representatives for deliberation.

Nursyahbani said that the law emphasizes men over women because of society's strong patriarchal values.

"Improving the law is important, but more important is changing the values and attitude of the public, including the law enforcers," she said.

Saturday's discussion, organized by the feminist group Kalyanamitra and the Foundation of Padi Dan Kapas, also featured Myra Diarsi, a Kalyanamitra researcher, noted psychologist Sartono Mukadis and Nina Jusuf from the Women's Crisis Center in San Francisco.

Quoting police sources, Myra said that in Indonesia one woman is raped every five hours.

"This is based on the reported cases. We know that there are many more cases which are not reported," she said.

According to Nina, four million women in the United States are victims of domestic violence every year.

"People sometimes forget that domestic violence kills. In San Francisco, domestic violence is the top killer," she said.

She said that most victims of domestic violence are financially dependent on their husbands and hesitant to go to the police for fear of getting divorced.

California state law, however, allows police to press charges against the batterers without the request of the victims, she said.

Intelligence

A noted psychologist, Sartono said that based on his long experience in the field of human resources, he has found that most women who apply for jobs have a slightly higher IQ than the male applicants. The percentage of women who pass the psychological tests is also higher than men.

"If my study is accurate, maybe the root cause of harassment or violence against women in the workplace is because men are worried that they might lose their roles as breadwinners," Sartono said with a touch of levity.

Sartono criticized the approach of feminists in Indonesia and suggested that they discuss matters with religious leaders and give more attention to local culture.

"Why not say, for example, that mothers need better food because we need better future human resources?" he said, provoking a number of participants at the discussion.

One woman responded angrily to the statement, saying that a woman deserves healthy food not because a healthy woman will produce better "human resources", but because it is her right as a human being. (sim)