Jakarta – Legal aid workers call on the government to provide legal aid for women, children and the disabled, who often experience discrimination in seeking justice, through a legal aid bill that caters to their unique needs.

The legal aid bill, listed in the 2010-2014 National Legislation Program, aims to provide legal aid for those with limited access to the law, including the marginalized, indigenous and low-income groups, by dispensing the state budget to provide legal assistance through legal aid institutes.

However, Fauzi, a legal worker at the Legal Aid Institute for Women, said the bill offered little protection for women, children and the disabled since none of the articles specifically addressed their particular needs.

"As vulnerable groups, women, children and the disabled have different needs and face different situations from that of low-income groups," he said. "The poor face financial constraints but women, children and the disabled face physical ones, which necessitate separate legal aid approaches," he told The Jakarta Post.

A case in which a financially able woman is denied alimony by her husband exemplified how women's cases differed from those living in poverty, he said.

The National Commission on Violence Against Women recorded 143,586 cases of violence against women in 2009, a 263 percent increase from the previous year at 54,425 cases. An astounding percentage, 96 percent, of cases fell under domestic violence.

Alvon Kurnia Palma, deputy chairman of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation, added that women and children who experienced sexual abuse, such as rape, needed assistance from legal aid workers, including paralegals, adept at trauma healing.

The National Commission on Child Protection handled 1,998 cases in 2009, an increase compared to 1,736 in 2008. Sixty-seven percent of violence was sexual in nature.

"Police stations and precincts provide lawyers for victims to simply fulfill case-file requirements," Alvon said, adding that these lawyers could not safeguard the victims from secondary trauma during the questioning session. "That's why they need assistance from legal aid workers, including paralegals, experienced in such situations from the start to end," he said.

Erna Ratnaningsih, Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation chairperson, added that having legal aid institutes should rest with the victims, as it was now, instead of having a state-run legal aid commission to appoint advocates to handle a case.

The bill advocates the creation of a National Legal Aid Commission to manage legal aid services at the central, provincial, district and city level. Erna said that the system was prone to legal corruption whereby judges might appoint advocates who could arrange cases and then split the allocated state budget.

"The legal aid commission should focus on administrative functions and strengthening the budget for legal aid," Erna said, adding that allowing clients to choose their legal assistants better guaranteed that the state budget went entirely to finance the client's legal processes. "Legal aid institutes have proven their existence in their work over the years." (gzl)