Discrimination and mixed marriage

Discrimination and mixed marriage

By Martin R Jenkins

JAKARTA (JP): Living as a foreigner in any country has its
pros and cons, but as far as discrimination toward foreigners
goes, Indonesia sadly takes the biscuit. Talk to any male
expatriate who has started a family here with an Indonesian wife
and he will tell you about the blatant discrimination that
expatriate men, their Indonesian spouses and children have to
face.

The crux of the problem is that Indonesian regulations
differentiate between the marriage of a foreign man to an
Indonesian woman and an Indonesian man to a foreign woman.

In the former case the foreign man has no right to obtain a
temporary stay permit (unless he is working) or to obtain
Indonesian citizenship. The children must also follow his
nationality.

In the latter case the foreign woman may apply to become an
Indonesian citizen and the children may also obtain Indonesian
citizenship. This is quite clearly an outrageous state of affairs
and unquestionably violates United Nations resolution 34/180,
which seeks to eliminate all forms of discrimination against
women.

Foreign men can only live in Indonesia on a semipermanent
basis if they are able to get work here.

Provided that the authorities approve the request of the
employers to employ a foreigner and the company pays the not
unsubstantial fees (including a phenomenal US$100 per month fee
for each foreigner employed), then the foreigner will be issued a
working visa and a limited stay residence card (which is valid
for one year and extendible for two more years).

Unbelievably though, the visa can only be issued abroad. As
the children of foreign fathers are also considered foreign then
they must accompany their father each time -- every three years
at least -- he obtains a new visa.

This can result in a huge financial burden given the large
cost involved: return air tickets, fiscal tax costs for each
family member, costs of renewing visas, hotel accommodation and,
of course, stress.

Imagine, for example, a foreign father having to leave the
country with his two young babies (yes, they have to go too!)
just to get a new visa. Moreover, if he changes jobs, then his
limited stay residence card is revoked and, yes -- he and his
siblings have to go overseas to get a new visa!

Should the foreign father lose his job -- then that's it -- he
and his children have no rights whatsoever to live in Indonesia.
He would lose his temporary stay permit, meaning that he and his
children have to leave the country.

Only his Indonesian wife still has the right to remain in the
country. This situation is clearly a violation of even the most
basic human rights. Article 9 (section 2) of the UN resolution
specifically states that countries must grant women equal rights
to men, with respect of the nationality of their children. How
much longer can the current situation in Indonesia be allowed to
continue?

There are obviously many implications of Indonesia's
discriminative law. In the case of parents divorcing, the
children would, as foreigners, have to leave the country if the
father no longer lived here. They would have no right to live
with their mother in Indonesia, even if it were in their best
interests to be with her.

Nonetheless, some children of foreign fathers can indeed hold
Indonesian citizenship. Take the case of a foreigner making a
prostitute pregnant.

The child would obviously be Indonesian -- the mother is
unmarried and the father "unknown". It would even be difficult
for the Indonesian immigration authorities to deport such a
child, as they would not know the nationality of the father!

This type of scenario shows that the prostitute mother of a
child has more rights than a decent Indonesian woman married to a
foreigner. This raises another interesting question: does it mean
that children of unmarried couples, where the father is a
foreigner, automatically have Indonesian citizenship?

If so, why are married couples discriminated against when
compared to their unmarried counterparts?

For foreign women who marry Indonesian men, there is naturally
no problem. Their kids can live here, they can live here and they
can also become Indonesian citizens, even if they cannot even
speak one word of Indonesian.

What has brought about this state of affairs? Are the
regulations simply to keep foreign men out of the country and to
stop them from marrying our girls? After all, any Indonesian girl
who marries a foreigner is apparently seen as being no better
than a prostitute, according to the Indonesian regulations.

Although the situation is very sad, there is hope. Hope that
the regulations will be changed for the better and made more
humane. Hope that mixed-marriage families, in which the father is
foreign, will not be subject to such terrible discrimination any
more. It is not much to hope for, is it?

The writer is a consultant at an Indonesian company.