Photos testify to societal ill of violence against women

By Lilia Syarif Naga

JAKARTA (JP): The reform movement has heightened consciousness of people nationwide and from all walks of life about their dignity, being and identity. The dawning of a freer atmosphere in the country has encouraged people to express long-standing suppressed feelings and suffering.

Women have naturally been part of the movement. The group Kaulan Perempuan (Women's Pledge) is organizing a photo exhibition on the theme Penghancuran yang di Empukan (Justified Destruction) featuring photographs about violence against women.

Kaulan Perempuan is supported by a large number of organizations, including the Association of Indonesian Women for Justice (LBH-APIK), Coalition of Indonesian Women for Justice and Democracy, Jurnal Perempuan, Indonesian Photojournalists, Komseni and the Ford Foundation.

The event is organized in conjunction with the commemoration of the ratification of the Convention on Eradication of Discrimination against Women, the International Day of Antiviolence against Women and the commemoration of 50 years of the General Declaration of Human Rights.

Its noble and strong mission is collective action to seek a community free of violence.

What might be considered a feminist event ironically displays mostly pictures by male photographers from among the 14 whose works are exhibited.

Since the theme concentrates on women's plight and a dark period in Indonesian history, do not expect to see photographs depicting conventional female beauty.

The exhibition is intended to shake public awareness. The prolonged monetary crisis, followed by the ongoing reform movement, has badly affected society's most vulnerable and weakest positioned gender: women.

The show -- at Galeri Foto Jurnalistik Antara until Dec. 10 -- displays gloomy pictures of women in distress: staging demonstrations and rallies, in jail, bereaved at the loss of beloved family members, victims of domestic abuse, tortured and harassed.

There are also those women struggling for noble causes in justice, democracy or human rights.

If given just 30 minutes to observe all the pictures, a viewer would undoubtedly obtain the clear and cold message that violence is everywhere and commonplace today.

Aftermath

Unfortunately, most of the pictures have only been taken in the aftermath of gruesome incidents, such as the unrest in Cirebon, Banyuwangi, Aceh, Palembang, East Timor, Jakarta and other cities. They are not comprehensive enough to represent major human rights violations in Sangoledo, Nipah, Timika, Lampung, Situbondo and Tasikmalaya.

Although the violence occurred in various parts of the country, many pictures focus on incidents in Jakarta. Some have been published in print media.

Playwright Ratna Sarumpaet -- winner of the 1998 Female Human Rights Special Award from the Tokyo-based Foundation for Human Rights in Asia -- resists as security officers arrest her for organizing the Indonesian People's Summit in North Jakarta in March this year.

In another picture, two officers seize Karlina Leksono, an astronomer turned activist, as she protests the skyrocketing prize of milk.

Tears and sad expressions are perpetualized in the pictures recording the black page in Indonesian history. Tragically, they stand as proof of a violent culture.

Scenes of the aftermath of Black Friday in Semanggi, Jakarta, and a family searching for a dead loved one in a morgue.

Truly heartrending are Acehnese women's faces after the military operation in the province. Female inmates stare out forlornly from the Tangerang women's penitentiary.

Amalia Pulungan, coordinator of the event, said women were indeed vulnerable to all kinds of violence, including domestic violence, military violence and even state violence. Women are sometimes not violated directly but by violence committed against loved ones such as family members.

Amalia emphasized the 40 pictures do not stress photographic art and technique, but humanistic content.

Karlina Leksono, who opened the exhibition on Dec. 5 with a rousing oration, said: "Victims of violence are always reported merely in statistics. Numbers cannot express the real blood spilled, the tears shed, the pain, the demolition of soul, the torture and atrocity and even unimaginable brutality. Numbers cannot reveal our memory of being humiliated, cornered, uprooted and we will bear this affliction in our whole life."

She believed that confronting the problem through the photographs was a means of closure to heal past wounds affecting the Indonesian people.