Markus Junianto Sihaloho – Some 15,000 women who embrace traditional faiths sought help from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle on Tuesday, gathering at the party headquarters to demand that the religion column on the state-issued identification card to be erased, saying it was a source of discrimination.

They also called for the government to recognize the existence of traditional faiths in the country.

Eva Kusuma Sundari, a lawmaker for the party, known as PDI-P, echoed the women's concerns in Jakarta on Thursday, saying that discrimination by the government against traditional faith practitioners left them vulnerable to stress and violence.

She said that by requiring citizens to state their religion on state-issued ID cards (KTP), the government had institutionalized discrimination against people who practice traditional religions.

The ID card application requires citizens to choose from one of just six officially acknowledged faiths – Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism – despite a ruling by the Constitutional Court that the state was not entitled to limit the number of religions.

Eva said a woman from Surabaya, East Java, named Dian Jeani, who practices the Sapto Darmo faith, told her that the children of people with traditional faiths are often bullied and called infidels. Sapto Darmo is a traditional religion from Central and East Java whose practitioners believe in the worship of ancestors.

"Since schools don't provide a religion class for traditional faith holders, the children were forced to learn Islam and perform the prayers," Eva said. "As a result, the children suffered stress even though the education law requires schools to provide religion classes for all faiths."

Eva added that traditional faith believers were vulnerable to violence by hard-line and anti-pluralist mass organizations since they were not protected by the law.

In Jambi, believers in one local traditional faith have been called infidels by a mass organization in the area, Eva said, and they have been victims of both physical and symbolic violence. Similar situations have also occurred in West Java, she added.

Traditional faith believers are also worried about Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi's call for regional governments to foster closer ties with violent mass organizations such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), Eva said.

"They feel like they are being thrown to mass organizations, which often resort to violence in their strategies to politicize religion."

In April last year, practitioners of the Sunda Wiwitan faith said that while their members had been allowed to list Sunda Wiwitan as their religion on their ID cards since 1972, the government suddenly stopped allowing them to do so in 2011.

"Suddenly, from 2011 until now, Sunda Wiwitan is no longer mentioned [on the ID card]," Daenah, a Baduy tribe figure who is also the head of Kanekes village, told the Banten governor Ratu Atut Chosiyah in Serang in April last year. "They said our religion is not mentioned in the laws."

The US government earlier said that state protection of religious freedom in Indonesia has been deteriorating.

While the Indonesian government generally respects the freedom of the country's six officially recognized religions, it has failed to overturn local regulations violating religious freedom, the US State Department said in a report.

And despite the country's tradition of religious pluralism, societal abuse against religious minorities is on the rise, it added. "There were several significant lapses in enforcing protections," the report said.

The International Religious Freedom Report, which examined religious freedom in 199 countries and territories in 2011, highlighted discrimination and violence against religious minorities in Indonesia including Ahmadiyah Muslims and Christians, as well as atheists.

It cited a case in February 2011 when a mob of more than 1,500 people attacked Ahmadis in Cikeusik, Banten province, killing three and injuring five others. Videos of the attack posted online showed members of the mob beating the Ahmadis to death as the police failed to intervene.

While 12 members of the mob were brought to trial, the report said, "they were given disproportionately light prison sentences" of three to six months. By comparison, an Ahmadi injured in the attack was arrested, charged with provoking the attack and sentenced to seven months in prison, it said.

"Due to inaction, the government sometimes failed to prevent violence, abuse and discrimination against individuals based on their religious beliefs," the report said. "In some cases, it failed to hold the perpetrators of violence accountable."