Indonesia’s fight for a law against sexual violence needs to involve a discussion of Islamic values

[Extract] This year, the House of Representatives of Indonesia (DPR) has returned for the second time in five years to the subject of law reform in the effort to eliminate sexual violence. This follows many years of lobbying by women’s rights advocates seeking wide ranging reform to end sexual violence and violence against women as part of their efforts to promote women’s rights and gender equality. Right from the beginning, such efforts have faced persistent opposition from conservatives and from parliamentary representatives both from Islamic and secular political parties.

The public policy debate surrounding the deliberation of the elimination of sexual violence bill in the past five years has been framed in terms of religious doctrine and state ideology. The first principle of Pancasila, which could be considered state ideology enshrined in the Constitution, is ‘Belief in One God.’ This is widely interpreted to mean that any public policy, in particular those pertaining to morality, must be based on religion—in this case Islam. Certain conceptions of human rights, and women’s rights are being cast as merely a Western construct which contradicts Islamic norms and therefore not worthy of respect and which must not define public policy making.