Elly Burhaini Faizal, Jakarta – Despite a growing number of victims courageous enough to report abuse to the police, few cases of violence against women are resolved fairly, activists say.

Andy Yentriyani, commissioner of the National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan), said many women who reported incidents of violence against them found the justice system to be inadequate at holding the perpetrators accountable.

To cope with the high rate of violence against women, the Women Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry, which coordinates an integrated service center for children and women who are victims of violence, is using a minimum standard service that comprises guidelines of legal assistance and trauma healing for the victims.

For example, it mandates that medical centers must provide free visum et repertum to help police investigations. Currently, many victims of violence, some of them poor, have to pay for a visum a repertum at hospitals, which costs only about Rp 35,000 (US$4.06), but for low-income victims, the fee could be a burden.

"Many victims failed to get fair treatment because they got the visum too late," Andy said. "The longer the delay, the less chance there is of bringing the perpetrators to trial because the evidence gradually diminishes," Andy said.

Andy spoke on the sidelines of a four-day meeting that ended on Saturday that was held by Komnas Perempuan and its 32 local partners as they prepared for a campaign against violence against women from Nov. 25 to Dec. 10.

Many activists saw the ministry's guidelines as inadequate since they contained too many loopholes, Andy said. "We are revising it so it can be a barometer for both the government and communities in supporting victims' recovery," he added.

Many perpetrators easily escaped punishment by making various excuses such as citing religious teachings to condone the abuse.

Palupi Pusporini, an activist from the Women's Crisis Center (WCC) in Jombang, East Java, said violence was still being used as a weapon to subordinate women, even domestically, while it was not easy to bring the perpetrators to trial since they used religious teachings to justify their acts.

She said violence against wives, including spousal rape, dominated violence cases against women in Jombang, which was also known as the "City of Islamic Students" due to its numerous Islamic boarding schools.

"It seems the perpetrators have the right to treat their wives harshly due to misinterpreted religious quotes saying that, 'The man is the leader for the woman,'" she said.

According to the WCC, 70 cases of spousal abuse against wives were reported in Jombang in 2010, up from 64 in 2009 and 57 in 2008. Poor knowledge and understanding among attorneys and judges of what can be determined to be "gender-related violence" also hampers bringing the perpetrators to justice.

"We have often failed to bring perpetrators to trial after attorneys accused them of merely performing an unpleasing deed instead of cruel violence such as sexually attacking, molesting or harassing women," said Patrick Modok, an activist from the Women's Solidarity for Humanity and Human Rights in Surakarta.

Komnas Perempuan recorded 105,103 cases of violence against women in 2010, down from 143,586 in 2009. Last year, 96 percent occurred in domestic settings, followed by 3,530 in public settings and 445 at the state level.

Of the 101,128 cases occurring in domestic settings, 98,577 – more than 97 percent – were violence against wives, followed by 1,299 cases of dating violence and 600 cases of violence against girls. "This shows that many women and children are not safe at home," Andy said.