Women, children 'need better citizenship law'
JAKARTA (JP): Citizenship laws must become more gender- oriented and institutionally controlled to empower women to control their citizenships and their children's, observers said yesterday.
In a seminar on citizenship laws affecting women, East Java legislative council executive Ida Sampit Karo-Karo said that these measures would be recommended to help women determine their rights to citizenship.
The seminar reviewed the United Nations Convention on Women' Rights that Indonesia ratified 13 years ago.
Under Indonesia's 1958 Marriage Law, a wife's legal status and her child's right to citizenship in a mixed marriage are recognized under the foreign husband's citizenship.
Ida said this law left little legal recourse for the woman and child regarding immigration, taxation and citizenship.
She cited as an example the citizenship of the five-year-old boy, Andreya Masaru Miyakoshi, the child of a mixed marriage between Indonesian woman Atik Kristia Yuliani and her Japanese husband, Mitsuo Miyakoshi. The couple were married in Surabaya, East Java.
The couple divorced on Feb. 22, 1996. The Surabaya District Court said the child would be in the mother's custody until Andreya could decide independently who to live with. The court ordered the father to pay Rp 250,000 (US$95) monthly in child alimony.
He has not paid alimony or prepared Andreya's Indonesian residency permit.
Ida said that Andreya, whose residency permit had expired, faced deportation due to his father's Japanese citizenship.
Ida said the 1958 Marriage Law did not comply with equality of basic rights for men and women under the 1945 Constitution as the outdated law favored men.
Deputy minister to the State Minister of Women's Roles, Wiek Wibadswo, said the 40-year-old citizenship law needed revision to meet the current demands.
Wiek said the 1945 Constitution and enforcement of Law No.7 1984 gave a woman the right to secure, change and maintain her citizenship as well as her child's.
A woman's ability to determine her citizenship affected her property and inheritance rights, he said.
He said the 1984 law covered 11 laws on marriage, workers' rights, education, health, family welfare and the Criminal Code on violence against women including rape and sexual harassment.
Wiek said after his presentation that his ministry had assessed nine laws on marriage, health, population development and workers' rights.
Laws on citizenship for women and refinement of Articles 281 to 295 of the Criminal Code were under further assessment, he said, adding that the articles covered sexual violence and harassment against women.
Director of the Indonesian Women's Association for Justice, Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, said that Indonesia would discuss its report on the convention's implementation in January 1998 in New York, the United States.
Nursyahbani said that the report would be discussed at a meeting with the UN Committee on Eradication of Discrimination against Women to help the government.
She said that a report on citizenship laws affecting children from mixed marriages had not been included. A woman's right to care for her child did not match the 1958 law for mixed marriages, she said.
She maintained that dual citizenship in mixed marriages would not apply in Indonesia. (01)