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.