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.