Poso girls speak out on abuse by officers

Poso girls speak out on abuse by officers

Ruslan Sangadji, Palu, Central Sulawesi

Hundreds of local girls in Poso regency have experienced trauma
and abuse after coming into contact with military and police
officers deployed here from other areas of the country over the
last four years.

Of the hundred or so women thought to have had from minor to
very serious problems, only 20 have had the courage to speak out
about what they encountered.

Mawar (not a real name), 19, revealed a bitter experience she
had with a police officer identified only as AI who was deployed
to work at the Central Sulawesi provincial police headquarters.
She had a courtship with AI, but when she became pregnant, he
forced her to have an abortion.

"I was threatened so that I would have the abortion, otherwise
he was going to shoot and kill me," she explained, while adding
that she then reported the threat to his superiors.

AI was prosecuted by a police tribunal, and sentenced to three
months in jail.

Mawar is not alone. Cinta, 18 and Melati, 21, (not real
names), from Malitu and Tangkura subdistricts in Poso Pesisir
district also became pregnant after dating policemen, but both
refused to marry the girls, leaving them abandoned with their
children and little, if any, chance of ever finding a husband in
the future.

Women's rights activist Soraya Sultan explained during a press
conference on Wednesday that hundreds of local women had
experienced similar or worse problems.

Those three that she mentioned were actually far more
fortunate than many others. Other women have confided in her
that they were raped by police or military men, but they were
afraid of formally reporting the crimes to the police.

Soraya said that she had been receiving reports of sexual
abuse for more than a year.

"The problem is there are only a few of women, around 20, who
have the courage to report the abuses to us. Most of the hundreds
of girls have been intimidated and threatened, so that they have
become afraid to report such abuses," said Soraya, the secretary-
general of the Women's Group Fighting for Gender Equality for
Central Sulawesi (KPKP-ST).

She said that the women had identified the security personnel
responsible for the mistreatment. "The perpetrators come from
various police and military units that are here in the province,"
she said.

She said that, out of the hundreds of cases, only one
policeman had been sentenced to jail, one other case was being
investigated by the Poso Prosecutor's Office and several others
were being investigated by the provincial police.

Separately, chief of Central Sulawesi provincial police Brig.
Gen. Taufik Ridha asserted that he would severely punish any of
his subordinates who committed sexual abuse. "There will be no
mercy for those committing sexual abuse," he said recently.