The government’s introduction of the death penalty and chemical castration for child rapists has had its fair share of supporters and critics. While strong arguments have been made on both sides of the issue, there are those who perhaps aren’t quite so qualified to give an opinion.
One such individual is musician Ahmad Dhani. When asked by reporters about the controversial new punishments yesterday, he responded by saying that he agreed child rapists should received more severe punishments, before going on to say something so incredibly sexist that it verges on Filipino President-elect Rodrigo Duterte’s levels of inappropriateness.
“For [rapists of] children, it’s a must, maybe castration is justified. But for beautiful women, perhaps not,” Dhani said, as quoted by Kompas.
The quote was not taken out of context, as the video above shows. It was a direct response to a reporter’s question asking Dhani’s opinion on whether more severe punishments are justified for child rapists.
You may think, “Why should I care what some out-of-his depth musician thinks about an important topic like this one?” Well, Dhani may one day end up holding a position of political influence, as he actually had aspirations to run for the governor of Jakarta in 2017, only to hit a financial snag and decide to potentially run for the vice governor position instead (if you think that’s ridiculous, look how far Donald Trump has gotten in the US).
We’d also speculate that there are more than a few people in Indonesia who agree with Dhani, at least in that they take the threat of sexual violence against adult women far less seriously than that of sexual violence against children. It’s not just that Dhani should be criticized for this outrageous statement, but that entire mentality needs to be questioned, because it helps allow the horrifying pattern of violence against women to continue to exist here in Indonesia.
A version of this article is available in Bahasa Indonesia at our sister site Coconuts Indonesia. Selamat membaca!
