Source:

https://www.magdalene.co/story/ending-rape-culture-in-indonesia

May 27, 2016

Ending Rape Culture in Indonesia

Addressing the prevalent problem of sexual crimes in Indonesia requires the nation to
acknowledge its rape culture and to change it.

by Devi Asmarani

When I was growing up there was a joke that used to go around. It’s about a man who robs
a janda (an Indonesian word for a woman who is either widowed or divorced) at her house
and rapes her. Afterwards, as he is getting ready to leave her house, she counter threatens
him: “Mau pulang atau mau ulang?” (You going to leave, or you going to do it again?)

Even in middle school I knew that there was something off about this joke. For one, it
reflects the social attitude of the day, which saw widows and divorcees as morally loose,
sex-crazed and husband-seducing women – a fair game. But I laughed along, assuming it
must be one of those grown-up jokes that I had yet to “get”. Years later in college in the
US, I often heard an expression that carries similar sentiment: “Can’t rape the willing.”

Only much later did I come to understand what was so wrong with that joke: rape is not
funny. Rape is horrible. The joke is also a reflection of a society that normalizes sexual
violence, equating it with some sort of sexual relation instead of an assault, and puts the
blame on the victims. It is the reason why many rape victims do not come forward and why
many rapists remain free and never punished.

I am a sexual violence survivor myself, and it took me years to finally realize that what
happened to me was wrong and that it was not my fault. What I knew then was that to
admit that I was being sexually molested almost every day would expose me, putting me
in the same category as “fallen girls”. Because, as my mother’s response once to my sister’s
complaint about the houseboys (the same ones who abused me at the time) being peeping
Toms: “that’s just what boys do.”
So I kept my mouth shut and learned to sit with my legs always tightly closed when the
houseboys were around. I also learned to lock my bedroom door, though this did not
succeed in stopping the abuse. I grew up always cautious that I might send the wrong
signals to boys and men, something that I subconsciously still do even to this day.

Since I opened up about my experience, many women have come forward to tell me that
they, too, survived sexual violence, some so harrowing that I couldn’t help but cry as they
recounted their stories to me directly or on email or text messages. One was repeatedly
molested by her father, one by her brother when growing up, and yet another was raped
by her neighbor. For some, I was the first person they had ever talked to about their rapes
or abuses. The saddest thing is that for much of their lives they had lived with the
assumption that they had done something wrong to induce the assault, often by people
they trusted. And the scary part is that none of their rapists or abusers were ever punished,
nor even reported.

The more stories I heard, the more it became clear to me that sexual violence is endemic
in Indonesia. The statistics don’t lie: every two hours, three women become victims of
sexual violence in the country, according to the National Commission on the Protection on
Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan). And this number is merely the tip of the
iceberg.

The recent spate of brutal rape and murder cases of young girls have attracted widespread
media attention, and pressures from women’s groups and activists have led the
government and parliament to respond by drafting new legislations on sexual violence.

It has also prompted some soul searching over why the problem is so pervasive in the
country. Questions were raised, though they hardly touch on the real cause of the problem,
focusing on external factors such as alcohol and porn as the trigger of sexual crimes.
Outside of circles of feminists and those with gender perspective, there seems to be very
little discussion about the real cause of the high number of sex crimes: rape culture.

Why it’s a “culture”

Simply put, rape culture is an environment in which sexual violence is pervasive and
normalized in the media, popular culture and society. It often exists, though not exclusively,
in deeply patriarchal society in which gender dynamics is skewed, with women being
subordinate to men, and in which there is a general lack of gender equality.

Rape culture is manifested in the way women are objectified in the media; in our daily
social interaction, the way women are valued for their physical appearance; in our
language, turning rape into humor, or euphemizing the word memperkosa (to rape) with
words like menggagahi (to overpower) or menodai (to taint); in laws that do not take side
with rape victims; in law enforcers’ lack of empathy for the victims and their apathy when
handling rape cases, discouraging survivors from seeking justice; in a culture that
stigmatizes sexual violence victims as defiled women; and in many other ways.
Victim blaming is one of the most obvious sign of rape culture. Asking questions like what
a woman wore when she was raped, or whether she had been drinking alcohol, or why she
was alone at that time of day at that particular place is some of the most common ways of
victim blaming.

Caregivers of sexual violence survivors in Indonesia are accustomed to hearing police,

prosecutors or judges ask rape victims these questions. A few years ago, a woman who was
sexually assaulted by four Transjakarta employees in a bus shelter in Central Jakarta was
blatantly harassed during the trial by the panel of judges, who asked what color her bras
were that day and why she wore knee-length pants when she’s a Muslim from the
staunchly Islamic province of Aceh. In the end, the four men were only sentenced to 18
months in prison, further insult to their victim who has to live with physical and
psychological trauma for the rest of her life.

Reactions and comments by high-ranking officials and top politicians reflect how the elites
view rapes. A few years back, then Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo responded to the case of
a gang rape of a woman in a minivan in South Jakarta, by saying that women should not
wear miniskirts in public transportation to avoid “any unwanted consequences”.

A candidate for the Supreme Court Justice who was the chief of a High Court in South
Kalimantan at the time quipped when asked his opinion about death penalty for rapists
during an integrity test: “both the rapist and the victim enjoy it. So we have to rethink about
the death sentence.”

Though they later clarify their remarks as a joke or having been taken out of context, they
merely showed the true color of many decision makers in Indonesia, who see sexual
violence as a problem that must be dealt with by women. Rape can only be prevented by
women. Sociologists believe that rape culture links non-consensual sex to the cultural
fabrics of a deeply patriarchal society, leading to widespread social and institutional
acceptance of rape.

Across the region and cultures

A United Nations study conducted in 2013 found that society in South Asian countries tend
to be permissive of sexual violence against women, and that rape is not considered a
serious crime in much of the region.

The study surveyed 10,000 men in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Papua New
Guinea and Sri Lanka, and a fourth of these men admitted to having committed rapes at
some time in their lives. One in 10 had raped someone who was not their romantic partner.
Men in Papua province in Indonesia came second at 40.6 percent, after Papua New Guinea-
Bougainville (62.4 percent), followed by those in urban Indonesia (26.2 percent) and in rural
Indonesia (19.5 percent).

Most importantly, what the study shows is that many of the men have no idea that rape
means nonconsensual and forced sex. They also do not know that rape occurs within
marriages too. The study found that rape between married partners was more prevalent
than among people who were not in a romantic relationship.

The survey also showed that repeat offenses are high among rapists, with nearly half of the
respondents admitting to having raped multiple victims. Almost a fourth said they had
raped two to three people.

The main drive behind this high prevalence of rapes is a sense of entitlement their gender
gives them, which takes root from a young age. More than half of the respondents admitted
to having raped someone when they were teenagers.

A total of 70 percent of the men said they did it because they had the right to claim
women’s body, while 40 percent said they were angry or wanted to punish the women.
Half of the men said they did not feel guilty and just 23 percent of the men said they had
been imprisoned for their crimes.

The problem extends beyond the region and even in developed nations. In the United
States, where rape culture thrives as well, an estimate of only three percent of the rapists
end up serving jail time, according to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network
(RAINN).

Changing rape culture

The first step in addressing this social ill is acknowledging that Indonesia has a serious rape
culture. It means admitting that we live in a society that favors silence, in which victims are
less likely to report their assault for fear of being blamed or stigmatized.

We live in a society that causes a woman who was raped by her own neighbor, a prominent
member of the community, to move out of her neighborhood to avoid public hostility
against her. We live in a society in which people see nothing wrong with sharing on social
media or messenger groups the post-mortem x-ray images of a brutally killed rape victim.

We live in a society in which a legislator blames a rape victim for walking alone from school,
and politicians insist a bill on alcohol ban is more important than an anti-sexual violence
bill. We live in a society in which the media often paint rapists in positive light (“a polite
man who always performs the prayers”), while sexualizing female victims (“the woman’s
body was found wearing red bras”).

We live in a society of compromise, in which girls are commonly forced by their parents to
marry their rapists (and the media think it’s moving); and police recommends rape victims
to settle their cases out of court in a “peaceful” way. And we live in a society ruled by rigid
gender stereotypes, which depict men as violent-prone and sexually driven beings.

How do we change the rape culture?

The way we do other social problems, by targeting the real source of the problem, which is
gender inequality. For one, the focus of any efforts to end sexual violence must be on the
perpetrators, not the female victims or potential victims, reversing some of the gender
dynamics that contribute to rape culture.

Prevention must include comprehensive sex education for children and adolescence that
covers discussions on gender equality and healthy relationship. Education efforts must
include everyone involved, including government officials, lawmakers, educators, parents,
employers, religious leaders and, most importantly, law enforcers and the members of the
justice system.

A stricter law like the regulation in lieu of law issued a couple of days ago is not a panacea
to this problem. But accompanied with a better legal system, a comprehensive law will
work more effectively as a deterrent factor, as well as a way to ensure support for sexual
violence survivors.

These are some of the measures to start building a better and more just society, in which
half of the population feels as safe as the other half.

***