Message between the lines sparks controversy

Message between the lines sparks controversy

JAKARTA (JP): The controversy over a public service advertisement regarding violence against women has refused to go away, with women activists now threatening to sue newspapers and magazines that continue to run it.

The ad depicts a woman's thighs in a tight miniskirt. The text between her legs reads "How can we keep sexual crime rates down, if your skirts continue to rise?"

Outraged women's rights activists have demanded that newspapers stop running the ad or face legal action for "pornography" and the degradation of women.

They criticize Minister of Women's Affairs Mien Sugandhi for "doing nothing" about indecent ads that insult women's dignity in the print and electronic media.

"The ad doesn't support the campaigns on crime against women. It makes women the culprits in the widespread violence against women," Ita F. Nadia of Kalyanamitra, which runs a communication and information center for women, said yesterday.

The Forum Keadilan magazine in its latest edition apologized to the public and promised not to run the ad again.

At the heart of the controversy is how one is to interpret the underlying message of the ad, which was created by the Adwork Euro RSCG Ball Partnership agency in cooperation with the publishing papers.

The agency says the ad was meant to remind women of the danger of wearing clothes that could provoke men to make sexual advances.

"We regret Forum's policy to quickly drop the ad," said Adwork Euro RSCG spokesman Ndang Sutisna in a statement. Debates for and against a particular issue is natural in a democracy."

Karni Ilyas, Forum's chief editor, said, "Our staff members who looked after the ad were all women and wearing miniskirts. And they didn't appear to mind."

Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, a senior lawyer from the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation, said the ad's text assumes that "miniskirts are to blame for the rising incidence of crimes against women."

"The message is too simplistic. We have data which show that no rape victim was wearing a miniskirt when it happened," she said.

The ad strengthens the myth that rape victims are beautiful women cruising around at night in provocative clothing, she said.

Last years's gang rape of Acan's wife and teenage daughters in Bekasi, West Java, destroyed the myth, she said. "The robbers broke into the house early in the morning and raped the women."

Of the 185 rape cases that Kalyanamitra registered in 1994, 74 percent of the rapists were known to the victims and 99 percent of the assailants were mentally sound. Of the victims, 28 percent were not "beautiful" according to Kalyanamitra.

The survey found that 73 percent of the cases were premeditated. But none of the victims was wearing a miniskirt at the time.

There is no official figure on the number of rape cases in Indonesia. Quoting police estimates, Ita said between 1992 and 1993, one woman was raped in Indonesia every hour.

Kalyanamitra recorded 564 cases of rape in 1995. Most victims were girls aged between six years and 14 years. Almost 90 percent of the rapists were known by the victims. None of the victims was wearing a miniskirt.

Chief the Indonesian Association of Advertising Companies, Ken Sudarta, said he could not find anything offensive with the ad.

In the Jan. 29 edition of Merdeka newspaper, he was quoted as saying, "Why don't they protest other ads featuring aspects of women's beauty, including women in tight miniskirts? Why are they targeting this public service ad."

Sudarta said that advertising's code of ethics does not deal with ads "featuring women's thighs in tight miniskirts", which he said is a common scene in fashion shows.

"Let's look at the positive side of the ad. It is intended to advise women against wearing tight miniskirts because their dress could provoke men into having (sexual) fantasies," he said. (pan)