Women remain target of Indonesian violence

Women remain target of Indonesian violence

Santi W.E. Soekanto, Journalist, Jakarta

Spare a thought today for three Indonesian women whose lives
ended in a most cruel way. They gasped their last breath in
extreme pain when, in three separate incidents of frenzied
killings in eastern Indonesia, enemy forces gored their pregnant
bellies out.

The first woman was Diana, a Muslim who died in July 200 along
with her three children when in July 2001 Christian mobs attacked
her Buyung Katedo hamlet in Poso, Central Sulawesi. The second
woman was an unidentified Christian in a small village of Maluku
who died in a Muslim attack during the worst of the Christian-
Muslim conflict in 1999. The third woman was a Maduranese killed
last year in the conflict pitting her ethnic group and the Dayaks
in Sampit, Central Kalimantan.

The death of the first woman was documented in a video footage
showing her mutilated body and those of her children, the second
death was recounted in an AFP report in 1999, while the third
death was revealed by the son of the victim to humanitarian
workers in Madura last April 2001.

There are other, certainly no less gruesome deaths of women in
the proliferation of violence in Indonesia over the past few
years. The backdrop may differ from one place to another, but the
horror is the same.

Statistics could be created on the number of women who
suffered in armed conflicts, but the challenge would be on how to
never allow the women become mere statistics. March 8 is the
International Day of Women's Rights and International Peace, an
event that has gone through a number of incarnations, ranging
from a communist holiday to a United Nations-sponsored
commemoration. However, the focus should not be on whether
Indonesia needs to heed the event, given its historical
background, but on how, as a turbulent society striving for
peace, Indonesia could observe every day as a day of women's
rights and peace.

The murders of the three women hammered home the message how
central the role that women's rights play in the quest for
international -- nay any -- peace.

The attackers in the three incidents could have simply slashed
the women's throats if death had been their sole objective. They
could have even wounded the women and left them as they were
writhing in agony, if inflicting pain on women had been their aim
in the first place. But no, they had to open up the women's soft,
distended bellies, and gored out the fetuses. They had to crush
the seeds of life in those women's bodies.

This disregard, disrespect, even hatred of life is the biggest
enemy of peace.

Activists, including Arist Merdeka Sirait of the National
Commission for the Protection of Children (Komnas PA), have
confirmed that children and women are the prime casualties of
armed conflicts. Approximately 1.3 million people have recently
been classified as internally displaced people in various
conflict zones of Indonesia, from Aceh in the west to Papua in
the eastern tip of the country. Increased insecurity and fear of
attack often causes women and children to flee, so they form the
majority of the refugees and the displaced.

The 27th International Conference of the Red Cross and Red
Crescent in 1999 pledged "to ensure that the specific protection,
health and assistance needs of women and girl children affected
by armed conflicts are appropriately assessed -- with the aim to
alleviate the plight of the most vulnerable." It pledged to put
emphasis "on the respect which must be accorded to women and girl
children (while) disseminating the prohibition of all forms of
sexual violence to parties to an armed conflict."

The world, through the United Nations Conference on Women in
Beijing in 1995, has attested that "although entire communities
suffer the consequences of armed conflict and terrorism, women
and girls are particularly affected because of their status in
society and their sex."

According to the ICRC, the starting point of any discussion in
the protection afforded to women by international humanitarian
law is the fact that they are entitled to the same protection as
men, be it as civilians or combatants. In addition, recognizing
their specific needs, international humanitarian law grants women
additional protection and rights.

General protection afforded to both men and women in armed
conflict include non-discrimination, principle of humane
treatment, and protection against the effects of hostilities, and
restriction and prohibitions on the use of specific weapons.
Women are afforded specific, additional protection whose aim is
to protect them with regard to their particular medical and
psychological needs, which are often, but not always, related to
their child-bearing role, and for considerations of privacy.

For example, the fourth Geneva Convention provides that
expectant mothers are to be the objective of particular
protection and respect. In situations of occupation it requires
expectant and nursing mothers to be given additional food in
proportion to their physiological needs and expressly includes
expectant mothers among the persons for whose benefit
belligerents may establish hospital an safety zones.

However, those provisions are for international armed
conflicts. Non-international conflicts, such as those taking
place in Indonesia, could be deemed simpler or even more
complicated. After all, as the ICRC says in its October 2001
Women Facing War report, "it is not so easy to distinguish
between combatants and non-combatants, especially in wars where
there are no front lines, no uniforms and no recognized military
structures."

Armed conflict -- be it international or non-international --
causes enormous suffering for those caught up in it. Women
experience the conflict in a multitude of ways -- from taking an
active part as combatants to being targeted as members of the
civilian population or because they are women. Women's experience
of war is multifaceted -- it means separation, the loss of family
members and livelihood, increased risks of sexual violence,
wounding, deprivation and death.

It is clear that the general and specific protection to which
women are entitled must become a reality, as the ICRC says.
Constant efforts must be made to promote knowledge of and
compliance with the obligations of international humanitarian law
by as wide an audience as possible and using all available means.
"Everyone must be made responsible for improving the plight of
women in times of armed conflict, and women themselves must be
more closely involved in all measures taken on their behalf."

The question of women's rights and peace is not something that
should be taken up only by campaigners of the so-called gender-
perspective outlook. It does not take much brain for us to
realize how shabbily women are being treated in today's society
-- this is simply a matter of humanity or lack of it. Discourse
on gender equity is needed but a thump on the head should be
delivered to decision makers, from President Megawati
Soekarnoputri down to local police and security leaders, and
anybody who do not contribute to the betterment of women's lot.

After all they were once mere seeds of life, who owed their
existence to the other half of the population: Women.