Stop sexual violence in Indonesia!

Even though a progressive Sexual Violence Eradication Bill against sexual violence has been proposed for almost ten years in Indonesia, it is still not ratified because of religious and conservative pressure on the government. The right fears that the inclusion of the term ‘sexual consent’ in a bill against sexual violence might tacitly approve of extramarital sex.

The lawmakers recently removed some essential elements regarding consent, power relations and public participation from the bill. Several progressive articles are deleted from that version, including articles that includes sexual slavery and sexual torture as a form of sexual violence. In addition, the definition of “rape” was refined to “forced sexual intercourse”, and the bill also transferred the responsibility for education regarding sexual violence to families, even though sexual violence is more often than not committed by family members! Ratifying this trimmed down version of the bill would be a huge setback for the Indonesian feminist movement.

Indonesian Socialist Youth Movement

This is why the Indonesian Socialist Youth Movement organized national demonstrations on Women’s Day to protest the dismantling of this legislation. They feared that a recent regulation to prevent sexual violence on university campuses, called The Minister’s Regulation No. 30/2021, might share the same fate of being trimmed down or cancelled.

The good news is that their campaign has lead to concrete results! They managed to mobilize mass actions in seven Indonesian cities. The combination between organizing works and linking recent issues of sexual violence cases in campus and public with the need for protest action proofed vital in the campaign. They even successfully defended The Minister’s Regulation No. 30/2021 on the Prevention and Handling of Sexual Violence at Higher Education Institutions!

Nevertheless, the struggle to pass the untrimmed Sexual Violence Eradication Bill continues. The bigots, fundamentalists, and conservatives such as Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS) or Wealthy Justice Party lost the battle in rejecting The Sexual
Violence Eradication Bill and their attempt to criminalize LGBT. But the trimmed down version of the Sexual Violence Eradication bill is being passed.

Het Actiefonds supports the Indonesian Socialist Youth Movement’s Struggle!