Govt 'not doing enough' for women

Govt 'not doing enough' for women

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Twenty-five years after Indonesia ratified a UN convention on
the rights of women, experts are criticizing the government for
failing to protect women from abuse.

Women activists and legal experts urged on Saturday the
government to eliminate existing rulings they said discriminated
against women.

Director of Law Coordination at the Ministry of Justice and
Human Rights Wicipto Setiadi said the government had signed the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW), but acknowledged it had yet to fully
implement the convention because certain laws still contained
discriminatory articles.

As examples, he pointed to Law No. 1/1974 on marriage, Law No.
23/1992 on health, a draft law on indecent materials and the new
Criminal Code draft.

"Abuse of women is only considered a moral violation (under
existing laws) instead of a criminal act," Wicipto said at a
seminar to promote awareness of the CEDAW.

He said that to change the situation, his office needed to
cooperate with other ministries to revise the discriminatory laws
and regulations.

He also said the government had yet to fully implement Law No.
23/2004 on domestic violence, which he said could be one factor
in the rising number of cases of violence against women.

According to data from Mitra Perempuan, a non-governmental
organization dealing with women's issues, the number of abuse
cases against women reported to the NGO rose from 18 in 1994 to
382 in 2000.

Mitra Perempuan director Rita Serena Kolibonso, who spoke at
the seminar, demanded the government include articles on sexual
harassment, rape (regardless of the relationship between the
accused and the victim) and human trafficking in the new Criminal
Code draft. She added that these articles should come with long
jail terms.

An expert on women's health, Kartono Mohamad, urged the
government to amend Law No. 23/1992 on health and Law No. 10/1992
on residential and family planning to better protect women.

"The government only pays attention to women's health when the
women are married. Teenagers and young women are not allowed to
use contraception and that is not acceptable in the current
situation because contraception is needed to reduce the teen
pregnancy rate," Kartono said.

He also said the government ignored the health of sexual
workers, increasing the danger of sexually transmitted diseases
being spread through the population.

"The government needs to include a few points in the health
law and the family planning law, such as protection from sexual
abuse and the introduction of contraception for unmarried women,"
Kartono said.

He realized this could cause controversy because the health
law states that young people are not even allowed to look at
different forms of contraception let alone purchase protection.

Kartono also said the law should be amended to protect victims
of physical and emotional abuse, including those abused by
members of their own family such as marital rape victims.