Throughout much of Indonesia, government officials are becoming increasingly aware that the country is facing a hidden epidemic of gender-based violence. While women’s rights activists are fighting to get the government to enact a draft bill to comprehensively address sexual violence (through mechanisms such as increased protections for victims and witnesses, increased access to justice, recovery and reparation mechanisms for victims) the regional representatives council for Bengkulu (DPRD), a province on the island of Sumatra, has a different idea for preventing violence against women and children in their region.
Their solution? Outlawing sexy clothes.
Mari ramai-ramai berpakaian seksi!! I love sexy cloths pic.twitter.com/KSlVyC7x45
— Faiza Mardzoeki (@FaizaMardz) December 18, 2017
The front page of today’s edition of Rakyat Bengkulu. The main headline reads “Sexy clothes can be criminalized”
The DPRD of Bengkulu is currently discussing a draft regional regulation (raperda) on “child protection and family protection,” a major component of which is a prohibition on sexy clothing.
According to reporting by local newspaper Rakyat Bengkulu, seven of the eight political parties in the DPRD have voiced their support for the proposed legislation.
Ir Muharamin, the chairman of DPRD Bengkulu’s Commission IV, said he strongly supported the draft bill due to emergency levels of violence against children in Bengkulu reported this year, saying that there had been 105 cases of violence and 126 cases of rape in that time.
The media reports on the bill we’ve seen did not clarify what, if any, specific definition of “sexy clothes” is being used in the draft regulation. Muharamin did apparently mention that, while the bill had the overwhelming support of most political parties, they were still discussing whether it would require all women, especially Muslim women, to wear headscarves and whether the law would apply to women inside private residences as well as in public.
Unsurprisingly, the Bengkulu chapter of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) has voiced its strong support for the bill, especially the prohibition on so-called sexy dress.
“The incidences of sexual crimes are not solely caused by the mistakes of the men, but also many are caused by sexy women’s clothes that do indeed invite intentions. So (this regulation) is not only about protection, it would also require women to protect themselves,” said the head of the Bengkulu MUI Fatwa Council, H Supardi Mursalin, as quoted by Rakyat Bengkulu, in a statement that could be used as a textbook example of victim blaming.
The head of the PAN faction in the Bengkulu DPRD, H Parial, said that the law would give severe sanctions to those who violated the law by wearing clothes that were, for example, too tight or too transparent. Ultimately, he believes that doing so will “limit the intention of perpetrators of crimes to do undesirable things.”
“In essence we want to suppress the high number of crimes against children and women. So far, the number of rapes, domestic violence and murders is very high. In addition, it is caused by other factors such as pornography as well as a lack of awareness in terms of religion,” Parial said.
If you think this kind of thinking is limited to a province like Bengkulu, you’d sadly be mistaken.
It was actually the horrific gang rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl in Bengkulu in April 2016 that put the issue of sexual violence into the national spotlight after women’s rights advocates drew media attention to the tragic case.
However, instead of placing the blame squarely on the perpetrators, Female Empowerment and Child Protection Minister Yohana Yembise insisted the girl’s parents were also to blame as they had been busy working instead of protecting their child and even suggested that the parents receive sanctions for their culpability in their daughter’s horrific murder.
