Achmad Nasrudin Yahya, Jakarta – The Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR) has highlighted the weakness of the legal framework for women who fall victim to violence.
ICJR researcher Maidina Rahmawati said that in the current context the existing legal framework needs to be reformed to provide better guarantees for women victims of violence.
"One of the aspects that needs to be discussed is the legal framework, where to this day it really needs reform", said Rahmawati during a webinar titled "The Impact of Violence on Women: A Burden that Has no End" which was held by the Atma Jaya Indonesian Catholic University HIV/AIDS Research Centre (Unika PPH) on Friday December 11.
According to Rahmawati, there is an erroneous perspective in the area of law enforcement where law enforcement officials have the wrong perspective about cases of violence against women based on gender.
This is the case even though the government has legal instruments such as the Criminal Code (KUHP), the Criminal Procedural Code (KUHAP), Law Number 21/2007 on People Trafficking and Law Number 31/2014 on Revisions to Law Number 13/2006 on Witness and Victim Protection.
"For example, in the Witness and Victim Protection Law it explains that there are restitution mechanisms which can be requested after a ruling by a court, this is made possible. But when it gets to the technical [implementation} the regulation is unclear", explained Rahmawati.
Thus, continued Rahmawati, the regulations that exist at the moment do not have a broad impact on victims of gender based violence.
"As a result, once again, although regulations at the highest level are available, the technical clarification has no impact on victims", she said.
Komnas Perempuan data shows that over the last 12 years, the level of violence against women has risen by 792 percent or by eight times.
In 2019 they recorded 431,471 cases of violence against women. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the level of violence against women has risen by 75 percent to as many as 14,719 cases.
Broken down, 75.4 percent of cases occurred in the personnel realm (11,105 cases), 24.4 percent in the community realm (3,602 cases), 0.08 percent in the state realm (12 cases) and 58 percent in the public realm (3,062 cases).
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "ICJR Soroti Lemahnya Kerangka Hukum bagi Perempuan Korban Kekerasan".]