Shelter takes in victims of abuse from far and wide

Rizky KD Ntoma, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

"Eti" was confused and scared: Four months pregnant after being raped by her employer in Malaysia, the migrant worker returned to her homeland and an uncertain future.

Riddled with shame, she knew she could not return to her family. But she was fortunate that a journalist writing about her story directed her to the office of the Kalyana Mitra foundation in Mampang, South Jakarta.

The foundation referred her to the Bhakti Kasih Social Institution, a shelter for abused women, and she delivered her baby at Budi Asih Hospital in Central Jakarta.

Eti plans to work overseas again but cannot bear to leave her child, now two months old.

"My baby gets sick when I'm ready to leave him. He gets a fever and his heart beats so fast. It makes me sad," the 26-year- old said.

"I'll probably leave him after he is old enough and ask my family members to take care of him."

Eti and her son live in the institution located on Jl. Dakota in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, with women who have faced sexual abuse or domestic violence.

"Ita" was taken to the institution after being beaten up and abandoned by her husband when she was seven months pregnant.

"My neighbors took me to the Budi Asih Hospital. A nurse at the hospital recommended that I stay there," Ita, 24, said, tears falling down her cheeks.

She said her parents refused to help her -- a common problem in domestic violence cases where families often side with the man as having the "right" to use physical force on his wife. She is confused about her future, but at least there is a roof over her head.

Eti and Ita are among 22 women at the shelter, five of whom have had their babies and two are pregnant.

One of the shelter's staff, P. Hutabarat,said that the institution began seven months ago following the issuance of Gubernatorial Decree no. 153/2002 last November.

"This place used to be a nursing home. When the decree was issued, it was changed into a social institution to take care of victims of violence, sexual harassment and rape," he said.

"The victims may stay here as long as they want."

Women may come to the institution, or call to be picked up.

The shelter, the first of its kind run by the city administration, receives Rp 213 million (US$24,625) per year from the Jakarta administration to finance its activities.

"The money is used to provide food for the babies as well as the women, so they don't have to worry," Hutabarat said.

Although their basic needs are taken care of, the women need counseling to deal with their traumatic experiences. For many battered women, such as Ita, that means overcoming their feelings of guilt about their plight, including that they somehow brought the abuse upon themselves.

"For the moment, we only have our own staff and religious teachers to give counseling to the victims. We have asked the City Social Welfare Agency to provide psychologists for us," Hutabarat said.

Vocational training, such as knitting and cooking skills, are also planned to allow the women to go into the workforce.

"We hope we'll be able to have the teachers next year."

It will be an uphill struggle for the shelter in dealing with the problem of domestic abuse and rape, in which entrenched societal attitudes that put the blame on the victim complicate matters.

This is not to mention the problems of migrant workers like Eti.

Thousands of Indonesian women are currently working in neighboring countries, such as Singapore and Malaysia, as well as in the Middle East.

Many of the workers, most of whom are from low educational backgrounds, reportedly experience violence and sexual harassment in their workplaces, and the Indonesian embassies were unable to help them. Latest data in 2001 showed more than 2.2 million cases of abuse of migrant workers.

Many of them have no place to turn upon their return to their homeland.

Besides the city-run shelter, several non-governmental organizations, such as Kalyana Mitra and the Legal Aid Institute of the Indonesian Women's Association for Justice (LBH APIK), have outreach programs for abused women and shelters.

They may be only addressing a small part of the problem, but it's a start.

The shelter can be contacted at tel. 21-421-6348.