Indonesia's Parliament Passes Landmark Bill on Sexual Violence

The final draft of the law includes prison terms of up to 12 years for crimes of physical sexual abuse, both in marriage and outside, 15 years for sexual exploitation, nine years for forced marriage, which includes child marriage, and four years for circulating non-consensual sexual content.

It stipulated that a court must compel convicted abusers to pay restitution and authorities to provide counseling to victims.

Under earlier proposals, the legislation would have also covered abortion and provided a clearer definition of what constituted rape.

The National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) and civil society groups first proposed the idea of legislation a decade ago and a bill was submitted to the house four years later.

The law was passed a week after an Indonesian high court sentenced an Islamic boarding school principal to death for raping at least 13 students over five years and impregnating some of them.

Several girls were 11 and 14 years old and were raped over several years, drawing a public outcry over how he was not caught earlier.

In January, President Joko Widodo told his government to expedite the new legislation, which seeks to make it easier to build cases and secure convictions.

One party in parliament, the Islamist Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), had objected to the bill, saying it should regulate against extramarital sex and calling for a ban on sexual relations based on what it described as “deviant” sexual orientation.

Sources: Reuters, AP