Experts say rapes can be engineered

Experts say rapes can be engineered

JAKARTA (JP): Medical experts agreed at a meeting on Friday
that rapes were usually not sexually motivated and could be
engineered by an organized group.

"Sex is not the primary factor in rape, particularly in mass
rapes," Wimpie Pangkahila, an andrology and sexology expert,
said, adding that known rape victims have been recorded to be as
young as 5 months and as old as 90 years.

"And it can spontaneously happen under conducive conditions,
or it can be engineered by a group with certain motives."

In most rape cases, "expression of power or anger is more
dominant, while sexual urge is secondary", he said.

Wimpie presented a study, Mass Rapes: a Bio-medical Review, at
a public dialog held by the Civil Society on Violence against
Women. Other speakers were noted psychiatrist Dadang Hawari and
sexologist Naek L. Tobing.

Wimpie, a lecturer at Udayana University in Bali, defined rape
as a pseudo-sexual act "which is more related to status,
aggression, control and domination, rather than pleasure or
sexual satisfaction."

Some drugs can stimulate people's aggressive sexual behavior
as well, he said, refusing to identify the drugs because of
medical ethics.

Dadang, a former president of the Indonesian Psychiatric
Association, noted that people committing rape during the May
riots in Jakarta and other cities in the country could possibly
have been under the influence of certain drugs.

"Under certain medicines, people act like robots. They do
whatever they are told to do, including saying Allahu Akbar (God
is Great) before raping," Dadang said, referring to controversial
reports of a victim quoting her rapists.

There could have been parties, he argued, who intended to
discredit Moslems by victimizing Chinese-Indonesians.

Dadang cited a statement by activist Yeni Rosa Damayanti, who
had told the forum that she had recently gained information of
civilians trained to instigate riots in East Timor.

Mass rapes occur in war or war-like situations, Dadang said,
adding that while he believed the reports of mass rapes during
the May riots, the scale could not have been like that in Bosnia,
for instance.

What happened in May, he said, "was created to look like a war
zone."

In his paper, Wimpie cited the occurrence of mass rapes in
several countries, all in war situations.

The experts expressed concern about authorities' statements
denying the reported rapes during the May riots. Dadang demanded
that officials should instead ensure the safety of the victims
and all parties linked to the investigation.

The experts said the police's approach in its rape
investigations had ignored the psychological impacts the victims
were suffering. They, however, echoed earlier concerns voiced by
members of the government-appointed fact-finding team
investigating the riots on the need of evidence.

Wimpie said it was hard to prove rape given the definition of
the crime in the Criminal Code.

The definition stipulates violent penetration, implying that
sperm is needed as evidence. He said, however, that sperm was not
always present in victims.

"The absence of sperm could be caused by premature or
interrupted ejaculation. And it is possible that rape happens
without penetration," he said. Dadang urged the law be amended to
provide a clearer definition of rape.

A source requiring anonymity told the forum of threats to
doctors dealing with victims. He said the harassment, which
included death threats, were targeted at doctors' families and
the rape victims. (01)