Dewanti A. Wardhani, Jakarta – Jakartans, especially women, have no one but themselves to rely on for safety on public transportation amid messy management and an absence of law enforcers.
Tini, 35, a shopkeeper at Sarinah shopping mall in Central Jakarta, said that she preferred being picked up by her husband or boarding the Transjakarta bus than taking a public minivan (angkot) if she happened to go home late from work.
"It's [taking a Transjakarta bus] much safer although it's not a guarantee of safety either," she said.
Last Friday at midnight, a female worker, identified as NA, 35, was raped by an angkot driver, identified only as DAS, 21, in his minivan on Jl. TB Simatupang, East Cilandak, South Jakarta. The driver had offered to transport the victim to her house in Pasar Rebo, East Jakarta, from her workplace in Kebayoran Lama, South Jakarta. DAS was detained by the South Jakarta Police last Saturday while the victim continues to suffer from trauma.
Rika Rosvianti, one of the founders of perEMPUAan, a group that combats sexual assault against women in public places and on transportation, expressed her concern over the recent case.
"Actions taken by the authorities are usually just temporary and forms of moral panic," she said on Friday.
Rika suggested that victims were usually reluctant to report their experiences to the police because officers sometimes blamed the victims themselves, citing mistakes they'd made such as going out at night or being good-looking.
"In 2014, we decided to write a guide on the prevention of sexual abuse in public places and on transportation," she said, adding that the booklet, which was written in Indonesian, could be freely downloaded via a link on the bio of @_perEMPUan_, the community's Twitter account.
She said that the reluctance of victims to report abuse caused only a small number of cases to be recorded. From 2011 to 2015, at least five cases of sexual abuse on angkot were reported.
On Aug. 16, 2011, a student of Bina Nusantara University in West Jakarta, LP, was raped and murdered by four minivan drivers. The perpetrators then took her cash and cell phone before leaving her body in a ditch in Cisauk, Tangerang, Banten. The West Jakarta District Court punished the perpetrators with life sentences.
After that and other sexual abuse cases on angkot, the Jakarta Transportation Agency obliged the drivers, among others, to wear uniforms and display their details on their minivans' dashboards. However, the regulations enforcement was weak.
Jakarta Organization of Land Transportation Owners (Organda) chairman Shafruhan Sinungan said on Thursday that his office could do nothing but ask their operators to comply with regulations.
"Only the Transportation Agency and the police can legally take actions against operators," he said, adding that passengers' safety was the operators' responsibility.
Jakarta Transportation Agency head Benjamin Bukit said on Thursday that his team only held responsibility for bus terminals until the end of their working hours, which was 7 p.m., after which they should be handled by the police.
South Jakarta Police spokesman Comr. Aswin said that his office did not deploy more officers following the recent rape case. The police would only intensify patrols at crime-prone areas.
Separately, Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama acknowledged that traveling using public minivans late at night was unsafe, adding that he would continue to improve Transjakarta's services and add more buses so that residents could stop using minivans.
"We will also add more CCTV across the city so that the police can easily monitor dangerous areas," he said. (prm)