Activists carrying signs in support of women's rights in Jakarta, Indonesia, during International Women's Day on March 8, 2022.JAKARTA — Two years ago in Indonesia, sexual harassment victim Baiq Nuril Maknun received a presidential amnesty, and she is now hoping parliament passes a new law on sexual violence, a decade after activists first proposed legislation.
In January, Widodo told his government to expedite new legislation, which seeks to make it easier to build cases and secure convictions, and lawmakers resumed deliberations on a draft bill this week. "The urgency is that it has to be passed. There are so many cases that have not been handled proportionally," Edward Omar Sharif Hiariej, the deputy justice minister, told Reuters.
Edward said there were 6,000 sexual abuse cases that had been filed since 2018, only 300 of which were settled in court.The National Commission on Violence Against Women and civil society groups first proposed the idea of legislation in 2012 and a bill was submitted to the house four years later. Lawmakers say those were omitted from the latest draft because they are included in revisions of other legislation still being deliberated. The government wants sexual slavery and forced marriage to be included, but parliament will decide.