Fitra Ashari, Mecca Yumna, Jakarta – The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) encouraged law enforcement in violence cases befalling women human rights defenders through a manual on protecting them, initiated by the National Commission on Violence Against Women.
"So far, it has barely been resolved through fair legal channels through a transparent, open, and impartial process, so it is expected that this can eliminate impunity for the factors of violence befalling women human rights defenders," commissioner of Komnas HAM Anis Hidayah stated during a webinar on the commemoration of Women's Human Rights Defenders Day that brought up the theme of "Knitting a Protection Framework for Women Human Rights Defenders" accessed here on Tuesday.
Hidayah noted that another aspect that leads to the formulation of such a manual, which also became a United Nations (UN) resolution, was the lack of case reports by women owing to multiple problems they had to deal with as compared to their male counterparts.
"This included multiple threats they will face when they report as well as the stigma that sticks with women human rights defenders," she pointed out.
In 2020, the commission received some 19 complaints on cases of violence against human rights defenders, both men and women. However, he saw that there were still many that were not recorded apart from the reports submitted to Komnas HAM and National Commission on Violence Against Women.
She expected that the manual could support or improve access to justice for women human rights defenders.
"Apart from the perspective or paradigm of upholding human rights in cases of women human rights defenders, who are still impartial, as well as support from the government, the surrounding environment is then still very patriarchal. Hence, it also impacts access to justice for women human rights defenders, whose demands have not been fully fulfilled," she stated.
Hidayah expects this manual to minimize the risks of vulnerability faced by women human rights defenders due to the lack of access to information, so that it could become a source of knowledge on all fronts.
"This manual should be used by law enforcement officials, central government, regional and state institutions, including government at the lowest level, being villages, because many women's organizations also have communities at the base level, with access also being very limited to human rights defender knowledge," she noted.
Through this manual published by the National Commission on Violence Against Women, she aimed to encourage the state's better recognition of women human rights defenders, who have actually contributed in advancing and upholding human rights of womankind in Indonesia. "(This is) because, until now, the recognition of women human rights defenders is still very minimal, both at the international and regional scale as well as in Indonesia," she concluded.