Singgih Wiryono, Jakarta – The National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) says that reports of violence against women have increased since the enactment of the Law on the Eradication of Domestic Violence (PKDRT) and the Law on Sexual Violence Crimes (TPKS).
Komnas Perempuan Commissioner Siti Aminah Tardi says that the increase in he number of reports is a sign that women victims of violence are gaining the courage to speak out when the state guarantees it will act on their complaints.
"[With] the existence of the PKDRT Law victims [are willing] to speak out and from now on it will also be so with the TPKS Law", said the women who is known by her friends as Ami at the Komnas Perempuan offices in Jakarta on Tuesday June 20.
Komnas Perempuan data covering 21 years of annual reports, which was published on Tuesday, shows that violence against women, especially in the private sphere, has continued to increase.
This is particularly so with violence against female spouses (KTI), which represent the majority of reports over the last 21 year period. Out of the 2.7 million cases of gender-based violence received over 21 years, 484,993 were violence against female spouses.
The second most common type of violence in the private sphere is date violence (KDP), which accounted for 26,629 cases.
Tardi said that the high figure for reports of violence against women should be viewed positively in order to improve access and services for victims.
She said for example, in cases of provinces that did not have any reports of violence, it does not mean there were no incidents in those places.
"Instead it should be read as provinces with high levels of reporting means that services are available there, so victims know what they must do", she said.
Meanwhile in cases of provinces that have a low report figure, it can reasonably be suspected that there are no facilities for complaints and there is not yet any education provided for victims.
Tardi also said that because of these limitations the Komnas Perempuan is certain that the data obtained at the moment represents a tip of the iceberg phenomenon where only the upper tip is visible.
"So we are still convinced that the data that has been reported is the tip of the iceberg, if compared with the Indonesian population, the data on gender-based violence of around 2.7 million, that's small if compared with the (total) Indonesian population", she said.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Komnas Perempuan: Laporan Kekerasan Terhadap Perempuan Meningkat Sejak Ada UU KDRT dan UU TPKS".]
