Jakarta, IO – Violence towards women must be halted. According to 2022 records of the National Commission on Women, there were 338,496 cases of gender-based violence towards women reported in 2021, increasing 50% over that seen in 2020.
According to dr. Retno Sawitri, Sp.FM, Fatmawati Central General Hospital Jakarta Forensic and Medico-legal specialist, what is meant by “violence” is any action, especially towards women and children, which causes physical, sexual, or psychological injury, suffering, or misery, including marital or household abandonment.
This crime is regulated in Law No. 23 of 2004 concerning the Eradication of Household Violence.
“Violence can take the form of a threat, intimidation, enforced action, rape, restriction of freedom, or discrimination against women because of power relations. Over the millennia, it has always been a ‘tip of the iceberg’ phenomenon. I will give you a particularly harrowing example of physical violence: I once checked a woman who was brought here unconscious and concussed, because her own husband hit her in the head with a 12 kg cooking gas canister! Victims usually find themselves in a dilemma when they want to report their partners to the police for violence, perpetrated by either the male or female spouse, because they fear retribution when they get home and have to face their spouses again,” reported dr. Retno in the “Gender-based Violence: Violence towards Women – What Forms You Need to be Aware of” live IG session.
Other than physical violence, there are also cases of mental or psychological violence (verbal abuse, intimidation, constant undermining), sexual violence (harassment and rape), and economic violence (giving lower wages to a person despite having the same job description or level because the employee is a woman, preventing a woman from earning her own income, preventing a woman from having personal money or a banking account, etc.).