Fajar Pebrianto, Jakarta – The Women's Empowerment and Child Protection (PPPA) Deputy, Vennetia Ryckerens Danes, asserted that the sexual violence bill (RUU PKS) must be passed immediately as it would provide legal authority for law enforcers to act on the sexual harassment case that happened aboard a train managed by state-owned railway operator PT KAI several months ago."Because the draft bill specifically states the types of sexual violence and types of offenses," said Vennetia as Tempo reached her on Wednesday, October 9.

She explained that no Laws currently available specifically oversees the eradication of sexual violence cases, which has made the issue of sexual harassment aboard trains, such as the aforementioned case, be viewed lightly by the general public. "This is the origin of sexual violence cases," she deemed.

Her statement directly responds to the standard operating procedure in handling sexual harassment recently issued by PT KAI on Tuesday, October 8. The state-owned railway operator said to Tempo that the SOP has been enacted since June 20, 2019.

Unfortunately, the official procedure only punishes perpetrators by dropping them at the nearest train station but has zero clauses that mention the legal processes on sexual harassment perpetrators.

The case referred to is the sexual harassment experienced by a female passenger aboard a PT KAI train from Jakarta Gambir to Surabaya on Tuesday, April 23, 2019. At around 02:00 AM, the case was settled amicably.

Source: https://en.tempo.co/read/1257982/pppa-sexual-violence-bill-needs-to-be-passed-asap