Jakarta – A self-proclaimed healer is under fire for claiming in a video that has gone viral on social media that rape victims were to blame for their own sexual assault.
Ironically, the video was posted on Monday (Nov 25), the same day the United Nations kicked off its annual 16-day campaign against gender-based violence, which this year is themed "Generation Equality Stands Against Rape" to highlight the need to end rape culture around the world.
Stand-up comedian Popon Kerok uploaded a video on his Twitter account, @poponkerok, showing self-proclaimed healer Ningsih Tinampi claiming that rapists should not be punished.
Ms Ningsih had made a name for herself by publishing videos on YouTube of her healing victims of santet (black magic) and performing exorcisms on people allegedly possessed by evil spirits. Her channel has 1.72 million subscribers.
The one-minute clip was part of a longer video showing Ms Ningsih talking to a genderuwo (supernatural creature in Javanese folklore) that had purportedly possessed a female patient.
The genderuwo apparently told Ms Ningsih that she was the spirit of an 18-year-old girl who killed herself after she was raped and got pregnant.
"Those who get raped should not blame their assailants... The assailants are aroused by the ones who get raped. It's the woman's fault," Ms Ningsih told the audience.
She added that when the spirit was still alive, she always wore "revealing clothes" and "teased everybody".
"(In rape cases), it's not necessarily the rapist who is to blame, no. For me, the one to blame is the one who got raped," she said, speaking a combination of Javanese and Indonesian.
As of 6pm on Tuesday, the video had been viewed 1.5 million times.
In his post, Mr Popon captioned the video: "Hey, SJWs (social justice warriors) and feminists, what will you do if Bu Ning says this (about sexual assault victims)?"
Social media users lambasted the stand-up comedian for his comment as well as for posting the video.
Twitter user @ferwinzandilolo responded to Mr Popon's tweet with sarcasm, saying that the comedian was a humanist for preserving Indonesian culture, albeit "the one preserved was the culture of victim-blaming and normalise sexual assault".
Female stand-up comedian Ligwina Hananto jumped into the fray, calling on fellow comedians to slam Mr Popon's reason for posting the tweet.
"I can't laugh at this because this reminds me of a case where a young girl was raped by several men as she was walking home from school. She died after a hoe was inserted into her vagina," she wrote on her official Twitter account @mrshananto.
Former religious affairs minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin also responded to the brouhaha, tweeting on his official account @lukmansaifuddin that victim-blaming was like "a sheep who is blamed for teasing the wolf that ate it".
"(We must) eliminate misogynistic perspectives by appreciating women and promoting equality in looking at male-female relations," Mr Lukman added.
Monday marked the UN-recognised International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which is commemorated every year on Nov 25.
With the 16 days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, which is set to run until Dec 10, the UN aims to campaign for an end to "rape culture" which includes, among other things, the "trivialising" of rape, victim-blaming and the use of misogynistic language.
– The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network