Ministry of Gender Equality BEM FH UNAIR held a webinar on Friday (25/11/2022) titled “The Urgency of Legal Protection for Sexual Violence.” In this academic activity, InPower Indonesia Founder and President Ghina Raihanna was invited to be a speaker to explain the portrait of sexual violence in Indonesia.
Ghina said that in terms of legal development, Indonesia should be appreciated because Law No. 12/2022 concerning Crimes of Sexual Violence (UU TPKS) and Permendikbud 30/2021 Prevention and Handling of Sexual Violence in Higher Education Environments had been ratified. There, a definition is given regarding what sexual violence is and what actions can be categorized as sexual violence.
“The aspect that does a sexual act considered sexual violence is the lack of consent. Consent is said to have been given by someone if it fulfills the FRIES principles,” said the FH UI student
FRIES here stands for five things:
- Freely Given, where consent is given without coercion.
- Reversible, where consent can be withdrawn.
- Informed, where a person must be informed of what sexual activity will occur.
- Enthusiastic, namely sexual activity, is only based on someone’s desire, not a necessity.
- Specific, approving is only for something agreed upon, so without assumptions.
China explained that the portrait of the reality of sexual violence in Indonesia is still unfortunate. As of July 2022 alone, there have been more than 12 thousand cases of sexual violence. Of course, around 11,000 of these cases were female victims. This shows the vulnerability of women as victims of sexual violence.
“The root of the proliferation of sexual violence against women is patriarchal culture. This culture places unequal power distribution between men and women in society. Thus, there is a social construction that prioritizes men and degrades women’s experience. This construction creates an imbalance in power relations which violates the permission for women’s bodily autonomy,” explained Ghina.
Ghina explained that the culture of normalizing sexual violence needs to be broken. There needs to be a cultural change so that victims can have the courage to talk about their experiences and get support from the community. This begins with listening to victims’ stories and not stigmatizing victims. Ghina also shared the importance of bystander intervention.
“This intervention is carried out when we see someone experiencing sexual violence. This can be done in various ways, such as directly reprimanding others, asking for help, or recording incidents,” Ghina concluded.
