Eva C. Komandjaja, Jakarta – Twenty-five years after Indonesia ratified a UN convention on the rights of women, experts are criticizing the government for failing to protect women from abuse.

Women activists and legal experts urged on Saturday the government to eliminate existing rulings they said discriminated against women.

Director of Law Coordination at the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights Wicipto Setiadi said the government had signed the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), but acknowledged it had yet to fully implement the convention because certain laws still contained discriminatory articles.

As examples, he pointed to Law No. 1/1974 on marriage, Law No. 23/1992 on health, a draft law on indecent materials and the new Criminal Code draft.

"Abuse of women is only considered a moral violation (under existing laws) instead of a criminal act," Wicipto said at a seminar to promote awareness of the CEDAW.

He said that to change the situation, his office needed to cooperate with other ministries to revise the discriminatory laws and regulations.

He also said the government had yet to fully implement Law No. 23/2004 on domestic violence, which he said could be one factor in the rising number of cases of violence against women.

According to data from Mitra Perempuan, a non-governmental organization dealing with women's issues, the number of abuse cases against women reported to the NGO rose from 18 in 1994 to 382 in 2000.

Mitra Perempuan director Rita Serena Kolibonso, who spoke at the seminar, demanded the government include articles on sexual harassment, rape (regardless of the relationship between the accused and the victim) and human trafficking in the new Criminal Code draft. She added that these articles should come with long jail terms.

An expert on women's health, Kartono Mohamad, urged the government to amend Law No. 23/1992 on health and Law No. 10/1992 on residential and family planning to better protect women.

"The government only pays attention to women's health when the women are married. Teenagers and young women are not allowed to use contraception and that is not acceptable in the current situation because contraception is needed to reduce the teen pregnancy rate," Kartono said.

He also said the government ignored the health of sexual workers, increasing the danger of sexually transmitted diseases being spread through the population.

"The government needs to include a few points in the health law and the family planning law, such as protection from sexual abuse and the introduction of contraception for unmarried women," Kartono said.

He realized this could cause controversy because the health law states that young people are not even allowed to look at different forms of contraception let alone purchase protection.

Kartono also said the law should be amended to protect victims of physical and emotional abuse, including those abused by members of their own family such as marital rape victims.