Ivany Atina Arbi, Jakarta – The Women's Solidarity Network for Justice has started an online petition demanding the Garut High Court in West Java rule in favor of PA also known as V, a woman sentenced to prison for starring in several pornographic videos.
The group launched the petition on change.org on Tuesday. More than 880 people had signed it by Wednesday afternoon.
"PA is a victim of sexual exploitation, human trafficking and domestic violence," the group wrote in the petition.
"After secretly getting married to her husband at 16 years of age, she experienced verbal and sexual violence inflicted by her husband. She was also sold by him and forced to have sexual intercourse with three men while being filmed, despite her reluctance."
While her husband argued the video had been made for his private collection, it went viral on social media – leading to her arrest in August last year. Her husband – identified as 31-year-old A – and two other men were also apprehended.
PA insisted that A had forced her to engage in sexual acts with other men for money. The husband, however, died one month later, before his trial started.
In a ruling on April 2, the Garut District Court in West Java found PA guilty of violating the 2008 Pornography Law and sentenced her to three years of imprisonment and Rp 1 billion (US$63,671) in fines. The other two men appearing in the video got lighter sentences than PA.
PA and her legal team appealed the verdict to demand a lower sentence or acquittal, while prosecutors did the same for the sake of a higher sentence.
"We will support PA to get a fairer verdict, as she is actually the real victim in this case," said the network, which includes the Legal Aid Foundation of the Indonesian Women's Association for Justice (LBH Apik).
LBH Apik's director Siti Zuma expressed hope to collect 10,000 signatures before the Garut High Court rules on the appeals. "Hopefully, the court will no longer issue an incriminating verdict against PA after seeing huge support from the public for her."