Rape Victims are Victims (2)

In a quick follow-up to my previous post, I found this published yesterday in the Jakarta Post:

"The mother of the 14-year-old girl raped by alleged human traffickers that she met on Facebook wants Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh to apologize for his statements on the case.

The mother of the girl, who has only been identified by her initials SAS, said on Tuesday her daughter had suffered a setback after the minister said she may have consented to sex and then claimed rape.

“My daughter was a victim, not an active participant. The family has agonized over this incident, and then the minister’s comment aggravated [our suffering],” the mother said during a press conference at The National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas PA) in Jakarta.

Nuh told reporters last week that cases of teenage rape were sometimes the fault of the victims. “They do it for fun and then the girl alleges that it’s rape.”"
 

 I'm assuming this is another case of rape (another minor, I think), but the fact that the Education and Culture Minister, who is responsible for the education of children and instilling the moral standards of our culture, can say that she wasn't a victim is messed up. Sure, there have been cases where girls have pretended to be raped to frame men, or to gain attention. There have been cases too where minors have claimed rape after what they regarded as consensual sex. But isn't that why we have a minimum age? Isn't that why sex with a minor is illegal anyway, because they're not mentally ready to give their consent? Isn't is considered rape anyway?

For a high-ranking government official to publicly question a rape victim, especially a teenage one, is just a show of how twisted our society is. Rape isn't the fault of the victim, that's why they're called a victim. People, especially girls, treasure their own body more than material things. Then why is a robbery victim not at fault for the robbery that happened to them while a rape victim is at fault? Why is someone who was stupid enough to get scammed through the internet considered a victim, while rape victims are marginalized? 

How can a grown man considered educated and cultured enough to be a minister publicly announce to the press that a young girl, one whose story he probably doesn't even know in detail, is at fault for getting raped? What kind of reaction does he expect from the public? Did he not think it through that she will be marginalized in her community because he implied that she was a slut? 

Men in Indonesia do not know the feeling of being labeled a sexual deviant because it's acceptable for men to be sexually active. They think of women who are sexually active as sluts. And yet this one man can so easily label a young girl a slut, while knowing subconsciously how her society will see her. 

As an Education and Culture Minister, his words are bound to have some weight. His statements are considered credible. But such a thoughtless man, who doesn't even consider the weights of his words, how can we trust him with the education of our country's children?

Rape Victims are Victims

What do people have against rape victims?

A few weeks ago, a middle school girl in Depok was chased out of her school because she was raped. VIVAnews reported that the school announced in the weekly morning assembly that they were unwilling to accept a student who has smeared the school's reputation. Upon entering her class, the girl was chased away by a teacher.

I don't know what can smear a school's reputation further than mistreatment of their students.

I think it's accepted universally that rape victims are VICTIMS. Victims who need counseling, who need protection. They're not criminals. They shouldn't be treated like criminals.

There is an issue with the way people perceive rape in Indonesia. Rape victims are treated like they deserved to be raped, there is a social stigma that generalizes rape victims as sexual deviants. This belief in reinforced by government officials; Jakarta's government publicly implied that a girl who was raped in a public transport had it coming because she was wearing a short skirt. A couple months ago, our Religious Minister also stated that there should be a specific dress-code for women, because skirts above our knees are considered pornographic.

Well, fuck you too.

It's because people assume that scantily dressed women are sexual deviants, it's because people assume that scantily dresses women want sex. Honestly, the definition of scantily-clad-enough-to-get-raped in Indonesia is pretty amazing considering we're supposed to be a democracy. Apparently it's okay for girls to be raped because their hot pants and miniskirts indicate their willingness to commit sexual acts.

Gentlemen, they're clothes. They're not an indication of sexual availability. They're not equal to a fucking neon sign that says "Yes, I am willing to have sex anytime, anywhere, with anyone. This is equal to my signature on a piece of paper, witnessed by a lawyer."

There is no such thing as sending the wrong signal. They could be naked and nobody would have the right to rape them. They could be winking and motioning you to come closer. They could be blowing kisses. But in the end, as long as you don't have their consent, any form of sexual harassment is a crime.

Wait, are we saying that prostitutes and sluts and sexual deviants deserve to be raped? Nobody deserves to be raped. Do you think it's okay to rape a prostitute because she's in the sex industry? Is it okay to rape a stripper, since she makes money using her body anyway?

Nobody deserves to be raped. Rape is defined as the crime of forcing another person to have sexual intercourse against their will or without their consent. Which part of unwilling don't these people understand?

Vice versa, people assume that rape victims are sexual deviants, people assume that they were raped because they sent signals of sexual availability. People assume that these young girls, rape victims, were prostituting themselves or performing equally abnormal behaviors in the eyes of society.

Another rape victim in Aceh committed suicide after a local newspaper published her name. Her case was taken up by human rights watch organizations, who speculated that she committed suicide because rape victims were considered prostitutes in the region. She was still a minor. She suffered from a stupid social stigma that couldn't understand the fact that she was a victim.

Another student lost her opportunity to learn, another little girl lost her world.

The girl in Depok is still alive, she still has a chance to become a normal student once again. The Ministry of Education succeeded in negotiating with the school to allow her return. She still has a chance to go to school, or does she?

Yes, maybe if she moved to a remote part of the country. Who would want to go back to a school that publicly shamed you in front of your friends? How else could a middle school girl react to being banished by her teachers, to losing her friends? Isn't that the same to being rejected by the people you look up to, the people you depend on, when you need them the most?

Shouldn't they be sympathizing with her, instead of condemning her? Shouldn't her teachers be aiding her integration into her learning environment after a traumatic incident, instead of giving her labels that will degrade her in the eyes of society? Shouldn't the school be condemning the incident and slandering the perpetrator, shouldn't they hold an assembly on how to better protect yourself against criminals? Shouldn't they be ensuring that her education resumes unhindered so that she can secure a bright future?

Instead what do these teachers teach?

They teach students to discriminate against rape victims. They teach students that rape victims do not have a right to education.

Despite the many flaws in the actual execution of this law, there is a law that states the guaranteed right to education for all citizens of Indonesia, at least until they finish middle school. That's why the government are working to abolish education costs for public institutions, so that everyone will have a little bit more equality in education. So people can work hard to achieve their dreams based on meritocracy, not based on how much money they inherit.

So why was that little girl denied her rights as a citizen? Because she was raped?

How does being raped justify anything? It's never their fault. Are we so barbaric as a nation that we would ignore the plight of rape victims and instead condemn them to a vicious cycle of being discriminated against?

Despite the fact that she is allowed to resume her educations, news reports said that she has refused to go back to school because she has been publicly humiliated. And if she does go back to school, what will she face? Teachers who feel burdened having to taught her, fellow students who has been taught by teachers to discriminate against her. What kind of educational environment are we putting our country's children in? What mindset are they telling children today to have?

Why are children being taught by the media, by the community, by the government that rape victims should be blamed? What kind of sick mindset is that?

The question people ask shouldn't be why was she raped, the question should be how can we help her overcome the trauma of being raped? How can she put the incident aside as to not let it hinder her studies and opportunities in life? How can her friends and family support her? How can this incident make her stronger instead of weaker?

You can't change the past, but you can change the future. Unfortunately, in the hands of a cruel society, lies the future of a little girl.

Take Note, Ye Aspiring Scientist

This post by 9gag user surshallow made my day. Here's to every little girl reading one of those world leaders series comics and dreaming of being the next Marie Curie.

Out in the Inside

As the sunny days decline into the somber, winter weather, I find myself less and less willing to go outside. Instead, staring out at the sidewalk from my window, I find myself questioning the concept of "going outside". Is it the breath of fresh air? The ability to look up at the sky? The ability to walk and explore the landscape, or the cityscape, with no restrictions? Or is it simply the notion of exiting the enclosed shelter we call "home"?

The outside. Literally, the outdoors: the landscape unbound by walls, without a door to enter or to exit. Simultaneously, the concept outside is interchangeable with anything outside our house. Surely, sometime in our childhood, we've played outside. Surely, there was a time when our parents, concerned with the amount of hours we spend in front of our computer in a room with artificial lights, told us to go outside. Even now, when I find my body refusing to leave the folds of my warm blanket, I find my roommate chastising me to go outside, to leave the house, to be productive.

In Happy Valley, I find the notion of going outside synonymous to the idea of leaving an enclosed space: to walk unimpeded by walls, to breathe the cool air, to look up at the sky, to enjoy a walk as an escape from the cramped space I call home. However, back home in Jakarta, I find that the notion of going outside doesn't correspond to entering the outdoors.

When we say we're going outside, where are we really going? We are simply moving from one enclosed space to the other. We exit our house, and even when we exit our often, we often do not walk outside our doors. Our cars are waiting inside our garages. We enter the car and we get driven to the epicenter of city life in Jakarta: malls. One enclosed space to the other, where else would we go?

Where is this outside? For us, there is only an enclosed space to go to outside our house. When did our "outside" become another "inside"?

Here, public space is taken for granted. It is expected for people to be able to freely use the sidewalks, to be able to walk across lawns, to be able to enjoy the public space, unencumbered by fences and walls. After all, isn't it normal for people to be able to enjoy the outside, the outdoors, the earth that we all share equally?

Why have we accepted the notion of another inside as our outside? Why are we stuck within enclosed, capitalized spaces?

Why is there nowhere else to go?

As citizens, do we not have the right to question the lack of public space? Do we not have the right to public space? Do we, as humans, not have the basic right of sharing our landscape, our cityscape?

Why have we been denied the green space, the open space? Why are the streets unfriendly? Why have public gathering been forced into small sidewalks, or the streets?

And for what little green space we have left, why do we let them be? Why are we so insistent on ignoring these spaces, leaving them for the homeless to scavenge? Gardens fenced up with barbed wire, but for what purpose? It doesn't keep the scavengers out as long as the people look the other way.

Why do we degrade our own public space, then complain that we have none? We left them be, preferring to chase after the notion of progress offered by the glittering malls. We accepted the message that as citizens, we had the right to progress, and that progress was embodied within the new capitalistic ventures that we call our malls. It became the center of our city lives, and so our city lives became a mobilization of people between enclosed spaces, but never a mobilization of people in the city.

We do not live in the city. We do not breathe the city. We do not walk in our city. We do no own our city.

We proclaim ourselves citizens, we proclaim ourselves good citizens, we proclaim ourselves citizens who are deprived of our city. For us, our city is just roads that we look at from our vehicles. It isn't a holistic environment. We live in the buildings and center our lives within the buildings. We do not go outside for the sake of going outside, we go to another "inside".

When was the last time you walked outside your house just for the sake of taking a walk? When were you able to enjoy walking down the streets, for the sake of being outside and not just to go to another enclosed space?

Why did we let our city become so hostile to us? When did the city become just roads? We have no space we share, only space we buy. Space that is capitalized, that's where our rights to public space ended.

We tried to fulfill a notion of progress by replacing every empty space with money-making industries. And yet we forget to make our city livable. The concept of a city disappeared and was replaced by an empty shell: a collection of roads and buildings. We live in buildings, live out our lives in buildings.

In our struggle to form the ideal, modern city life, we forgot to include the city in our plan for progress. Now we are stuck in an endless cycle of being inside.