The upcoming bylaws that discriminate against women and limit their freedom are mostly copies of existing bylaws of similar nature, Masruchah, from the National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas) said Saturday.
"Most of the bylaws are phrased differently, but they all have the same nature as the ones applied in other areas," she said.
Currently there are 154 bylaws that are seen as discriminative towards women. These bylaws, such as those applied in Aceh and Tangerang, Banten and West Nusa Tenggara, contain rules that center around morality, clothing and religion.
Some of these bylaws, implemented in seven provinces and 16 regencies, prohibit women from leaving the house after 9 p.m. without being accompanied by her muhrim (lawful spouse or male relative), some implore Muslim women who work as civil servants to wear jilbab (headcovers).
Last month, Komnas discovered that at least 15 new bylaw drafts containing discriminative articles were being deliberated. Masruchah said that the 15 drafts contain roughly the same articles as its forerunners.
"The new bylaws in Yogyakarta and Jombang [East Java] copy the bylaw applied in Tangerang, and the drafts in West Java regions copy the already applied bylaws, which prohibits women from leaving the house at night or advising them to wear jilbab," she said.
She added that those bylaws violated the 1999 Human Rights Law and the 1984 law that ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (Cedaw).
Rita Serena Kolibonso from Mitra Perempuan, a women's crisis center, said that such bylaws increased the chances of violent and unfair conduct toward women.
"A woman could be arrested for walking alone at night, for example, and she would be vulnerable to violation by officers," she said. Rita said that although a person suffering from discriminative bylaws could fight her way by going to court and using the human rights law, such efforts were hard and costly.
Masruchah said that the move to revoke or revise the discriminative bylaws was the job of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and not the Home Ministry, because the ministry had claimed it only dealt with bylaws about regional taxes or levies.
"However, we will continue to push the ministry to revise or revoke those bylaws." (JP/dis)