There were issues confronting the Civil Society Coalition for Women and Children (Komasipera) – a coalition established to respond to actual issues, cases and urgent calls in communities in order to meet the human rights of citizens. This was expressed by Vera Kartika Giantari during a Komasivera discussion on 18/7. In previous meetings, participants –activist of women and children issues – identified issues and expectations in communities.

Komasipera wished to have time to discuss the Law on Sexual Crimes, to identify women and children issues including violence against women and children, and ways to identify violence cases and impacts, accompaniment at household level by the integrated service centre at local community level. Violence happened amongst others as a result of power relations. The differences between local government and the integrated service centre on how to address sexual violence resulted in different expected outputs, differences in opinions about gender inequality that brought about sexual violence, other differences in understanding – resulting in blaming, judgment, or giving advice based on their respective understanding of the issues, and not being happy when others did not take seriously their opiniuons into account - and the person accompanying victims was not able to see the issue in an unbiased manner (tendency to make judgment).

A number of things had to be underlined. First, when the person accompanying victims felt that he/she knew better, then the outcome would be sub-optimum. Second, the fact that there was an absence of a standard operating procedure in addressing violence, that the system was unstructured in nature, that there was little in terms of the possibility for a discussion about prevention of violence by participants (training, seminars, etc.), and in terms of what information participations may gain. Third, this was about discussion with regards to challenges/difficulties (i.e. integrated service centre stopped operating, supports to victims, blaming victims). Finally the Fourth, discussion regarding the system in Indonesia with regards to legal issues, psychology, medical issues, socio-cultural issues that did not actually provide any supports to victims of violence

Participants wrote down their expectations during the Komasipera meeting, which includes the following.
1. Solution to reduce domestic violence and early marriage
2. Ability to find new things when working to accompany victims
3. Ability to find positive things and avoid the “sin” of being an accompany to victim
4. To find new knowledge to be good accompaniment to victim
5. To gain more skills while accompanying victim
6. To identify the right steps to address the issue and to become effective aacompaniment to victims
7. To provide effective information to address violence and to improve lifelihood of community.

Myra Diarsi Talked about a Book which Encouraged Common Responsibility

The resource person, Myra Diarsi talked about a book entitled ‘Menumbuhkan Rasa Sepenanggungan’ or Developing a Sense of Common Responsibility, during a Komasipera discussion. The book was a result of a research on support groups, which would be an apt guide for those wanting to accompany victims.

The discussion focused on the biggest challenge which participants may be facing in relations to violence and their work to accompany victims – i.e. children who were forced to work (economic exploitation) which aptly illustrated poverty in community. A second issue had to do with child marriage which often happened because of lack of information. The third related to the taboo regarding sexual education. The fourt issue was about “wrong/incorrect” lessons in school (many teachers insisted on taboos when it was about sexuality). The last one related to information dissemination and teaching to children which tended to put a boundaries on children (children could not do this or that) when children were actually very critical.

The education system did not teach character to children. Character was different from religion. Many parents who had money prefer to send their children to Islamic Schools. Yet, character should be the parents responsibility to instill, as had been plainly described by Ki Hadjar Dewantara “We must learn to be human first of all.”

Many child-related problems were in frot of us – a child dropping out of school after bullying, a child who did not have a National Student Registration Number because the child was studying in a non-registered/standardised school or in an islamic school, a child whose rights were not met because the father was busy with online gambling and unable to meet the family needs, a five-year old child whose father was always right (tough character), a child whose father often committed violence against the wife and whose behaviour matched that of the father.

Another issue had to do with the self-confidence of a mother/woman who thought she could do all in accompanying a victims by herself which may caused a discomfort/resentment in the child. It may look bold to accompany a victim, but it was wrong to ignore the family. This was exactly what Nunung Purwanti, a woman activist, expressed.

People with disability experienced physical and psychological violence from their non-disabled partner, to the point where they wanted to have a divorce. That pressure spread into the family until a member of the family developed a mental disability/schizoprenia. Pressures also came from workplace. This was an example of a case which a member of Komasipera accompanied.

The Work of a Person Who Accompany Victims

Then, as a person who accompanied a victim, the wuestion was how to approach a victims so that the latter felt safe and comfortable dealing with the violence that the latter experienced?
The next question as parents living in a digital era, was how to teach children well and correctly in an information age with so much information available online?

Myra Diarsi offered a number of solutions to the problem encountered by community workers who are doing advocacy works and who had suppports from organisations working in addressing violence in conjunction with the government (education offices; school supervisors, etc.)

1. Do not ignore administrative management particularly in relations to chikdren’s data, because it was the State duty to fulfiul children’s rights.
2. Overhaul overall problematic system by for example make use of public voices
3. Increase awareness in communities of the importance of children’s rights as stated by Vera Kartika Giantari.

A child who could not continue their schooling may be advised to take “a Course” i.e. in a Study Centre at a subdistrict level. It was important to encourage the community to have the confidence and courage to voice their ideas about government’s duties.

It was important for a community worker to ask how close a woman is to her child (children) without giving the woman additional burden, because it was possible that a woman/mother was afraid of her own child (children), and not to think of solution which may have been right in a community worker’s mind. A child had to have time to reflect to develop a sense of common responsibility.

Othet solution was to ask women and their children to find a new environment/community for supports, i.e. through integrated health posts. The output could be a strong(er) child’s love for the mother.

One participant, Pamikatsih offered input and suggested to not say ‘No and Don’t’ to children, because they would do it anyway. Instead, she suggested to do self-healing so that children do not have negative/zero emotion. She could also provide self-healing at no cost.

At the last session, the moderator asked participants to share stories and experiences in order to develop closer bond amongst them. The nmoderator also emphasised that gender was not a single issue, but intersected with many other issues, including disability which in itself was a complex issue. (Adi C. Kristiyanto/Ast)