Jakarta no longer city of hope for rape victim
Jakarta no longer city of hope for rape victim
JAKARTA (JP): In a few weeks, young "Lani" will be one of a crowd of maids suffocating in bus on their happy trip home for the Idul Fitri holidays.
But amid the shower of gifts and stories of the big city that the family will press around to hear, Lani will keep the night of Jan. 25 to herself.
In a big house in the shady area of Menteng in Central Jakarta, she wishes very much that this Ramadhan reunion will be her last.
"I don't want to come back. I just want to stay in the kampong," she says, eyes staring from a triangular face framed by black bangs.
Seven months ago, the 16 year old left three younger brothers in Cianjur, West Java, "to seek experience". She landed a job as a maid. Her friends got factory jobs but there were no vacancies left for her.
"Be careful of the men here," a fellow servant warned.
"Ah, teori!" (That's only theory)" joked Lani, copying a commercial. "Not all people are bad."
She was always cautious. But she cannot explain why one night, after running a simple errand to the nearby market, she followed a man who told her to come with him.
He told her to hold a white stone, and in the end she was caught in a city raid.
"She was hypnotized," declares her employer, Mrs. Pertiwi.
They don't know what became of the man.
"He must have been one of those men selling girls," Mrs. Pertiwi adds.
If Lani can stay home in her hamlet, the visions of the terror and the rape that followed might blur and fade quietly away.
"I can't believe it happened to me," she sighs, recalling the terrible moments: Stripping before a bunch of men, a man forcing her down, the taunts and banging on the table, the blood on her white culottes. The puzzling scene of other women nonchalantly watching TV as Lani and another girl, who kept wailing she was not a hooker, were stripping and crying.
"Monkey! Stupid! Shut up!" barked one man.
"Learn your lesson," added another.
"I will dump you at Cipayung," said the man who had yanked her legs around his neck.
A dungeon with high walls was all Lani could envision while she choked back screams against the "policeman" in a brown shirt.
"I was scared I would never see my parents again," she says.
Cipayung isn't a prison. It is a temporary government-run shelter for the city's misfits.
The man in brown turned out to be an acquaintance of the nearby men in uniform, who, with sickening irony, belonged to the city's security and order division.
Later identified as Aswin, a private driver, the man had asked to come along for the raid.
"Is this what I get for not having an identity card?" Lani asked her employer later.
Along with the other girl, who kept crying that she had lost her big sister at a bus stop, Lani was dragged into an open car and dumped at the Gambir office of the security division. She remembers that the other women wore flashy dresses and heavy makeup.
When they were forced to strip, Lani pleaded "Please sir...we are human beings."
The men laughed. Grabbing Lani, one of the uniformed men asked, "Who wants to go first?" and a man with curly hair stepped forward with his Rp 10,000 (US$4.32) note.
Lani's voice is small, her pauses long.
"She is tired," says Mrs. Pertiwi, referring to Lani having to recite her story over and over to the police, the press, and the police again. But Mrs. Pertiwi says she is much better.
Her last report filed at the police was much clearer, Mrs. Pertiwi says. Clearer than the first time when questioning was interrupted by sobs, her employer says.
How far will Lani go?
"I did not want to report, I wanted to forget," says Lani.
But Mrs. Pertiwi said there could be many others like her. So Lani reported.
Their story raised an uproar at the administration.
The head of the city's security division lined up all his subordinates to get answers. Officer Cep, who offered Lani to the rapist, has been fired.
The new district head has begged the local police chief to not drag him into the case.
Later, a man called Gunawan, claiming to be a policeman, came to the house and said he wanted to "borrow" Lani for questioning. A check at the police station revealed no such officer existed. Lani now goes to the market with an escort.
She is strong, for now.
"My employer says she will be responsible, how can I not do anything?" she asks.
On Friday, Mrs. Pertiwi accompanied Lani to identify both the rapist and the officer who put her up for offer.
"Even if you get pregnant we will immediately arrange for an abortion," says Mrs. Pertiwi.
Yes, Lani mumbles.
"I am not mentally strong (to have the baby)," she explains.
She keeps busy, vigorously cleaning the windows, then the floors.
Yes, she will continue with the prosecution, "because I want the man to be caught. He must be taught a lesson."
The next moment, she asks, "What are the courts like?" then says "I am dizzy, I keep pounding inside."
Her parents, she repeats, must never, ever know.
"But even if you hide out in the kampong, what will you do when someone finds out from television?" asks Mrs. Pertiwi.
"Then I will leave again."
She says she needs to come forth to prevent other victims; she is "shattered" when reading about others like her.
But her terms stick. Her mother and father must be spared.
Lani has thought about the future. Any man who might wish to court her might regret it later.
"Gradually he will belittle me," Lani said slowly.
And how do you think you will stay strong?
"One cannot be sad all the time, I could work myself up into a whole lot of stress," she says. (anr)