Trauma and horror remains for women raped by rioters

JAKARTA (JP): The debris around many of the buildings damaged during last month's riots has been cleaned up and business is slowly restarting.

But for most of the women raped between May 13 and May 15 just facing up to the fact that they are still alive is an almost unbearable burden.

"For the victims, death would have been better than anything else," Ita F. Nadia, chairwomen of Kalyanamitra, a women's organization, told The Jakarta Post on Monday evening.

The women, mostly Chinese-Indonesians, have been deeply traumatized, Ita said.

"Their experiences have cast a shadow over every second of their lives and tears falling from their mournful eyes are unstoppable," she said.

"They're scared and fear sleep because of the nightmares which it brings."

Ita believes that the people who raped and sexually abused women during last month's riots were "so brutal, inhumane and heartless that they do not deserve the life which they have been given."

"They violated not only the victims' human rights, but also their right to live" she said tensely.

"Tell me, what kind of human beings are evil enough to rape a 12-year-old girl in front of her helpless parents?," Ita asked.

"They're incredibly cruel and brutal," she said.

Kalyanamitra are trying to persuade the girl's parents to allow them to help banish the horror of the attack and help the little girl to slowly rebuild her childhood, Ita said.

Some of the attacks even went beyond rape and abuse, she added.

"A man told us that his wife's attackers mutilated her genitals with a razor blade after first raping her," Ita said.

Another man visited the organization a few days earlier to tell them about the tragic death of his two sisters, Ita recounted.

He told how his two teenage sisters were raped by at least seven people. The gang then threw them into the fire which they had started in their family home, Ita said.

He was rescued by his neighbors, who tried to extinguish the blaze.

A housewife, also a Chinese-Indonesian, was brutally harassed and raped before being left alone by her assailants in her burning house, her relatives told Kalyanamitra.

"The woman finally decided to commit suicide," Ita said.

One young woman had a lucky escape after her taxi was stopped by a mob in the middle of the night of May 14. She was forced out of her taxi and undressed in front of the crowd, she said.

"Then a man pushed through the crowd, pulled me out and gave me Moslem clothes to wear," the woman recalled.

The terror and confusion of the attacks has made it nearly impossible for the victims and their relatives to accurately describe their attackers. Investigations have been further hampered by the state of anarchy which reigned at the time which has made it almost impossible to confirm the actions and whereabouts of any suspected rapists.

"But all of the victims are sure that they have never met their attackers before," she said.

Ita said the organization had received many more telephone calls from women recounting horrifying tales of abuse and brutality.

Many women had refused to meet staff from the organization directly, she said.

"We have to be patient and fully understand their feelings, we are here when they are ready," Ita said.

The organization is treating all calls and approaches for help in strict anonymity.