DV PROBS? HANG IN THERE, WE'RE THINKING

                    No rush – the women can wait.

Five years ago a Bill was put before Indonesia’s 575 Lower House (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat) MPs urging them to penalise sexual violence. Activists stressed the need for urgency as the scourge was increasing.  They’re still waiting.

Pessimists’ fears were amplified when 430,000 plus cases were reported in 2019, and even more since the coronavirus has sent millions unemployed, fracturing families and stoking stress. 

Activists say these numbers are hillocks and the real figures mountainous as few speak out.  Support for battered wives is rare, and in suburbs and villages where families are packed close, bedroom battles swiftly become public property.  Then all know who’s at fault.  Guess what? It’s rarely the fellow.

In 2018  Baiq Nuril Maknun, a primary school teacher in Lombok, recorded her principal’s  sexual harassment.   Although a confidante had put the story on-line against Maknun’s wishes, she was sentenced to six months jail for distributing immoral material before being given a presidential pardon. Her boss was acquitted.

Indonesia ranks just behind the Philippines as the most dangerous nation for women in the Indo-Pacific.  That’s according to a survey by the Singapore-based research company ValueChampion. Reasons include inadequate assault laws, social inequality and poor health care. 

The Indonesian Criminal Code defines the offence of rape, though not abuse, exploitation, slavery and online harassment.   The idea of marital rape has still to be widely accepted.

Because the proposed legislation gives women the right to say ‘no’, opponents have argued this would lead men – who are supposed to have a greater sex drive - seeking relief outside wedlock and so exacerbate the situation.

Despite tentative backing by the two main secular parties, PDI-P and Golkar, it seems the bill won’t be debated this year.  Fundamentalists assert changes will upset the nation’s moral purity and pollute its culture with vile Western perversions.  

These include casual sex, same-sex marriage, unmarried couples living together and community acceptance of gays, all bundled together under the tag seks bebas (free sex).

Support for reform is strong if a study involving 2,200 respondents is to be accepted.  Research by the International Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID) and the Indonesian Judicial Research Society (IJRS) reported around 70 per cent back the Bill.

The scepticism is fuelled by the small sample and the distinct difference between the values of urban respondents and rural residents.  Almost half the population lives outside the big cities.

The reality known to all change agents is that 88 per cent of the population claims to follow Islam.  That huge cohort in a republic of 270 million wields political clout.  

Just as Australians get their impressions of the world’s fourth largest nation through media clips of floods, volcanoes and drug busts in Bali, so the Indonesian press tends to highlight stories about perceived permissiveness, as though Oz is defined by sex scandals.

Homosexuality isn’t illegal in Indonesia, but consenting adults are regularly harassed by clerics and their zealous followers.  In orthodox  Aceh gays get whipped in public.  Last month two late-20s men in a consensual relationship were beaten 77 times each.  Five thrashers were involved to avoid tiring the torturers. 

President Joko Widodo has publicly said he wants the brutality to stop. It continues, and draws tourists.  His writ is supposed to cover the whole archipelago of 6,000 occupied islands, but the north Sumatra province goes its own way.

During his 32 years in power the late President Soeharto tried his hand at social engineering by defining the roles of men and women: the bapak-bapak brought home the rupiah, the ibu-ibu kept the house and kids clean and fed, and the bed ready.  It was called Ibuism (‘Ibu’ means mother) and ensured women were tied to sink, stove and cradle. 

Their approved community involvement was through the Dharma Wanita (women’s duty) organisation where a member’s status depended on her man’s job.   If he had a high position in a government office his spouse could boss around other wives, whatever her age, education and leadership skills.

Since Soeharto’s departure in 1998 women have dashed ahead, though progress is uneven.  Dharma Wanita has gone and the General Elections Law mandates 30 percent of candidates for national and regional legislatures must be women.  That doesn’t mean they get pre-selected for winnable seats.

Constitutionally Indonesia is a democratic secular republic. It’s not a Gulf State and has women running major corporations and holding powerful Cabinet positions.  Between 2001 and 2004 Megawati Soekarnoputri, a daughter of first President Soekarno, ruled as fifth president. More up-to-date standouts include Foreign Affairs Minister Retno  Marsudi, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati and Manpower Minister Ida Fauziyah. 

Despite the latter lady’s title, her job does include woman power. Around 53 per cent  aged 15 and above are in the workforce compared to 82 percent of men. (The Australian figures are 60.7 and 70.9 percent.  However they are suspect because many work part-time.

Yet behind the modernity lurks a patriarchal tradition which puts men as family heads, women subservient to their needs, and prioritises community calm above personal distress. 

The women’s lobby wants the reasoning behind the bill articulated through government campaigns, specifically to explain that sexual violence is more than brutal rape of a stranger.  As in Australia, most assaults occur in the family home and involve intimate partners.

The thinking thwarting reform runs on these illogical rails: Marriage authorises sex so all intimate behaviour is consensual. If the relationship turns bad, women should mask their bruises and show their smiles to maintain harmony.  If an underage girl becomes pregnant the pressure to wed is intense.

In 2019 the law was amended so both parties can marry at 19.  It used to be 16 for girls.

However the global NGO Girls, not Brides which fights to stop child marriage, reports  ‘religious courts or local officials (can) authorise marriages of girls even earlier, with no minimum age in such cases.’  

So what can reformers do to accelerate change?  Conservative Indonesians may reject their neighbour’s liberal attitudes, but they’ll be happy to accept our Liberal leader’s habit of entreating citizens to pray.

First published in Pearls & Irritations, 19 Feb 2021: 

HARDIASTARTI

The Merry Widow and the Shed of Tears © Duncan Graham 2007

As a caring and sharing center for women it’s the pits. The shed is basic bloke; a couple of truncheons hang on the wall along with a thick web belt, the macho man’s favorite fashion statement. A scruffy banner promotes the local football team Arema Malang, the champions of East Java.
Truck batteries leak acid on the coarse concrete floor and the chairs are as hard as the pain being expressed. The smoking yard outside is an oil-puddled knackery for bashed autos. When trains rumble past everything shakes.
But this is the best that can be found for the headquarters of Pekka (Program Pemberdayaan Perempuan Kepala Keluarga). The World Bank, which supports the program, clumsily translates this as ‘Indonesia Women Headed Household Program’, but that’s something of a euphemism. ‘Empowering Single Mums’ might be more direct.
“We’d prefer to be more central, but this is the only place we could find,” explained group leader Hardiastarti. “We borrow it from a men’s club. We used to meet in my home, but the neighbors didn’t like to see so many women coming into their street.”
What will the neighbors say? It seems to be the dominant question directing behavior in small communities everywhere, maybe more so in Indonesia. Hardiastarti, 47, is conscious of the conventions and doesn’t want to offend, but she’s also a change agent bucking traditions.
If these push-pull factors are worrying her she’s not letting on. She dislikes discrimination but takes a charitable view of other’s attitudes. Nor is she letting her own marital hassles drag down her ambitions to lift the lives of those less lucky.
“If divorce can be said to be good, then I made a good one,” she said. “I was married for 11 years and we had two daughters. But he went off with another woman. In 1999 when the girls were 10 and 5, I divorced him. Fortunately that’s relatively easy in Indonesia.
“Before we split I got him to pay regular maintenance for our children. That stopped in 2004 so I confronted his new wife. She agreed with me that he had to keep up his responsibilities and the payments restarted. Women have to work together on these issues.”
In telling others of her experiences Hardiastarti soon realized that her story was unusual. Most divorcees only get the kids and the contempt. When the breadwinner vanishes so does the cash and status.
There are no government welfare benefits for wives alone, no child support schemes where public servants track down runaway husbands, to garnishee their salaries as payment for their kids’ education and upbringing.
In a culture where the community consensus is that women are responsible for failed unions the discarded wife is doubly victimized. Men see her as sexually famished so easy prey; women fear she’s out to steal their hubbies.
Nowhere is the discrimination clearer than in the language.
Technically janda is a widow and diceraikan is a divorcee. But the first word is widely used to cover both conditions in the hope that no-one will ask for details of his last resting place – which is likely to be another lady’s bed rather than a cemetery.
Hardiastarti is a noble exception, a taboo breaker. While others drop their voices and scour the corners for eavesdroppers she’s cheerfully upfront about her own fractured life and the need for women to take a tough stand.
This hasn’t made her a harridan. Not for her the dumped Western feminists vengeful cry – ‘All men are bastards!’ You won’t find her in self-defense classes perfecting the knee in the crotch.
“I believe in fate,” she said. “This is my life, the one that God has decided. I thought I was a good wife, but my husband wanted another woman. I should not feel sad and grave – I want to get married again.
“Before the break up I wasn’t like this. Divorce has made me stronger. I realized I had to help others.
“At present our culture won’t sustain the laws that operate in the West where abandoned wives get community support and the police will intervene in domestic violence. I can’t imagine men being charged with rape in marriage.
“There are some laws to protect women but they aren’t strong. So if there are going to be any changes we have to introduce them ourselves. The male politicians won’t do it. They think they’re superior. They just want to tread women down.
“Pre-marriage contracts that determine property ownership in the case of a marriage breakdown may be alright for celebrities in Jakarta where both have careers. But these aren’t for ordinary people where the expectation is that the man earns and gives his wife a household allowance every month.
“My advice to young women is to get a skill before you get married so you can retain your independence.” And her words to young men? “Be responsible. Fulfill your obligations. Treat your wife as an equal.”
Hardiastarti said that women headed about one in seven households in Indonesia. Some had to turn to kawin seri (serial mock marriages), not because they were immoral but because they had no other means of providing for their children.
Pekka, which started in 1991, now has branches in eight provinces. It works to help widows and divorcees take control of their lives, build self esteem, develop economic independence and eyeball society without shame.
Hardiastarti knows this is a tough call, and not just from her own experience. Although she has no formal social work qualifications (she used to be a university lecturer in marketing, and later had her own catering company) she seems to have some rare listening skills that encourage other women to tell their torrid tales of matrimony gone bad.
Encouraged by the empathy of others in the room, and indifferent to the presence of this lone male reporter, a Catholic mother of three tearfully claimed to have been beaten up by her husband, who had originally trained for the priesthood.
She said he’d taken another woman four years ago and was now living with a former prostitute. In the meantime the discarded wife had been diagnosed with breast cancer, which she thought could be the result of having had a civil wedding and not a church blessing.
Hardiastarti heard the long sad story without comment, just smiling encouragement to continue while others were weeping and touching. She could suggest no solutions, but knew that offering an unshockable non-judgmental ear might help ease the pain just a little.
“Once a woman has children she has to concentrate fully on their welfare,” she said. “In this culture if the kids aren’t good the mother gets blamed. Very few men divorce and become single parents. The women have to start their lives again from zero.
“May I say this to your readers? Please care and have sympathy for widows and divorcees. Don’t think of us as bad – we’re just people with a different experience of life. The system in Indonesia is not fair – men don’t suffer like women do when a marriage ends. Treat us as equals.
“I’ve had many problems, but I’m happy. I want all janda to be happy.”

(For Pekka contacts see: http://go.worldbank.org/5D4ANF95M0 )

(First published in The Jakarta Post 8 August o7)
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