Finally, a further step to being human

Ati Nurbaiti, Jakarta

No one in my family knew what to do about my aunt. She had been subject to her husband's beatings for many years. Even the children, when they had grown up, had cried out to her to get a divorce. Then her husband, for some unknown reason, changed his religion and it would have been easier for them to separate. But she didn't seek a divorce. No one could really figure out why; the tall, handsome woman was the breadwinner, the girls were now adults, and her religion, Islam, clearly permits divorce under such conditions.

Was the prospect of becoming a divorcee so terrifying compared to the repeated physical and verbal abuse? It was not talked about in the open and the couple just seemed to have gone their separate ways.

Over the years the whispered stories of acquaintances with similar stories would come up. No clear solution was heard of.

In the late 1980s, at the first proposal to set up a women's crisis centers a female lawyer had remarked: "Indonesian women wouldn't report abuse in the family. It would go against family honor and their own."

This may explain the case of my aunt -- and that of unfortunate women in high places. But then there were others who did come to report their cases once they knew there was a place to turn to.

Now, a milestone has been achieved; on Tuesday, the legislature endorsed the bill on domestic violence. Never before has there been state recognition, that domestic violence exists and that it is a crime. At long last even rape within marriage is now a crime: "Sexual violence" is defined in part as "forcing sexual relations on someone within the household".

Never mind that legislators may have just followed the politically correct trend of being "gender sensitive."

For the first time people in Indonesia are now told that no one may use "violence in the home" whether it is physical, sexual, or even "psychological". Likewise one may no longer "neglect the household", with reference to not providing adequately for the family.

The perpetrator of constant mental torment, for instance, could receive four months imprisonment or a Rp 3 million fine. In the case of death, the penalty for violence is 15 years imprisonment or a Rp 45 million fine.

Recognition of the crime also means acknowledgement of state responsibility in such actions: "Within 24 hours of being informed of receiving a report of domestic violence police must immediately provide temporary protection to the victim," the bill says.

Thus a major obstacle is gone -- that a victim must be able to provide evidence and a credible witness to the crime -- while within the home the only ones would likely be the hysterical spouse, silent child or servant apart from the perpetrator.

Most cases have been either withdrawn by the victims themselves, or could not be taken to court due to insufficient evidence. The National Commission for Violence against Women reports that out of almost 6,000 cases of violence, about 46 percent involved domestic violence, but only 162 reached court.

Women activists are not entirely happy; given that only two of 10 acts of violence do not carry minimum penalties, they fear judges could just hand down probation sentences.

The bill is a milestone nonetheless. Improvements can come later on. The women are relieved that deliberations need not go begin anew with the new term of legislators, with which arguments about the sacral nature of marriage, the family and the household, recycled all over again. In the haggling over this bill, even women legislators were clinging to all arguments against a bill that threatened to raise the divorce rate.

A law which spells out a crime that could even be carried out by loved ones conveys a strong message of what is right and wrong -- to parents, spouses and employers bent on "disciplinary measures", to mothers chiding their whining daughters and reminding them of the traditional and religious virtues of patience in marriage, or to neighbors restraining themselves for fear of being inquisitive and intrusive in private affairs.

There is a big gap, of course, between having such a law and changing women like my aunt, and the clerics forever preaching that a woman is assured her place in heaven just because she is devote and submissive no matter what.

But with adequate information and education, younger men and women would sooner or later take it for granted that in no nation claiming to be democratic could anyone walk scot-free after beating someone black and blue. That it is no less a cowardly crime as the bombing of innocents.

The younger generation would no longer accept it as normal, albeit unpleasant, when a fellow human is kicked around just because she earns more than he does -- or just because the victim is the most accessible, silent punching bag in the frustrating rat race to wealth and power.

The writer is a staff writer for The Jakarta Post.