Immigration laws biased and sexist

Immigration laws biased and sexist

Thanks for the information from Mursanudin Ghani of the
Directorate General of Immigration's public relations section
(The Jakarta Post, Aug. 13, 1999). He explained that a foreign
man who marries an Indonesian woman can stay with his wife for
two months on a social/cultural visit visa sponsored by her, and
he can then extend it five times for a month at each time.

And then what?

It is absurd because the husband has to leave the wife.
Indonesian immigration laws violate human rights because they
force their own people, Indonesian women, to leave their country
and go with their husbands to his country. They also pressure
foreign women with Indonesian husbands to abandon their own
nationality to become Indonesian citizens. The women find it
becomes increasingly difficult for them to extend their stay
permit in Indonesia the longer they retain their nationality.

It's a lucrative business at the immigration office. Most
countries have patriarchal arrangements but not to the extent of
Indonesia, forcing married Indonesian women to go to the foreign
man's country and compelling foreign wives to take the Indonesian
nationality of their husbands. Or the foreign wife leaves, taking
her husband along, because he can reside, keep his nationality
and is even allowed to work in her homeland.

People of mixed marriages should have the right to live where
they want to and obtain the necessary support from the government
in question.

Foreign spouses, men or women, in Indonesia should be given
reasonable, yearly and later five-yearly extendible stay permits
without any barriers or strings attached from immigration and
they should be allowed to work normally (not needing all kinds of
permits) and keep their nationality, which is the case in other
countries. It is ridiculous if a foreign husband is not allowed
to work in Indonesia and theoretically has to live on the wife's
earnings (where is the patriarchal principle in that?). It is
cruel and heartless, and maybe revengeful and spiteful, to tell
the Indonesian woman that it's her own fault by marrying a
foreigner. It's the same for the foreign women -- why did they
marry an Indonesian?

Follow your husband, be a "good wife" and give up your
nationality for him! How mean! The Indonesian laws for mixed
marriages have to be revised and should not discriminate against
women as they do now.

Hopefully the new government will look into this matter.

MRS. SUHARTO

Jakarta