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.