Tulisan ini telah diterbitkan di Organise! edisi 93 by Anarchist Federation (AFED) Britain pada bulan November 2020
By Fanny
Syariful Alam
Regional coordinator of Bandung
School of Peace Indonesia, a safe place for the youth to acknowledge social and
human rights issues as well as to express themselves freely for peace and
social justice
fannyplum@gmail.com www.bsopindonesia.org
2018,
in one narrow aisle in Bekasi Timur street, Jatinegara, Jakarta, Indonesia, RA
met a girl, continuing with sexual assault after hitting her head. He claimed
to conduct it spontaneously due to her revealing clothes. The
latest was in July 2020 when a video shows Starbucks’ male employees
who peeped the women’s customers’ breasts through their CCTV in one of the
outlets in Jakarta, Indonesia, making most people on their social media comment
on the women’s clothes, seemingly to be ‘inviting’ the perpetrators to do so.
Furthermore,
there is a tendency that women with revealing clothes are seen to have a
strong potential object for sexual harassment and rape. This statement directly
implies that the ones with more covering clothes are safer. According to one of the protection institutions for women, Rifka Annisa
through their spokesperson, Defirentia Muharomah, in Jogjakarta, Indonesia, the above statement
is according to one of their researches underlying that the actors do the
actions because they deserve to be “the righteous” to see women with such
clothes, and even they never feel guilty to conduct them
Everywhere,
women are vulnerable for sexual harassments and violence with the skyrocketing number
across the world. No matter how many international covenants about human rights
and equal rights for women as well as some improvement of applicable laws to
support and to prevent them from those above-mentioned misconduct have been
signed, they cannot prevent them to be still easily exposed with various undermining
actions, while the societies and authorized officials tend to blame them as
well. The main victimization definitely leads to what they are wearing when the
events emerge. Clothes are one of the visible yet easiest causes to re-accuse
women for encountering sexual
misconduct. Furthermore, it is still effortful to raise public awareness to
see the reality that sexual harassments and violence occur to women merely on
account of perpetrators’ pure crime and negative mindsets, not because of the
victims. This circumstance stirs most people to dismiss the victims’
perspectives despite their condemns against their experience.
Clothes as Moral Standard Time to
Time : Indonesian Religion-Based Perspective
Clothes
usually symbolize certain parts of traditions, or even stories, and have
maintained ancient stories of rituals, values of the countries, the identity of
people. At first in general, identities are constructed through use of
building materials, starting from history, geography, biology, productive and
reproductive institutions, collective memories, personal fantasies, power
apparatuses, and religious revelations (Castells,2010).
Time develops and clothes improve as fashion
ideology. Clothes and fashion appear to be simultaneously inter-exchanged in
terminology, however, in sociology terms, clothes mutates to broader definition
to fashion as the non-cumulative change of cultural features, originating from
a basic tension specifically to the condition of the human being which
underlies the tendency to imitate somebody else or to distinguish ourselves
from others (Simmel, 1904).
Simmel’s statement about fashion assists
to identify clothes as a part of cultural traits, one of them is religion. Specifically,
most the institutionalized religions provide their values as codes for societies
for defining morality standards, even towards the existence of clothes that are
supposed to be worn by societies. By following their conduct, the societies
have an imperative role to maintain their religions’ traditions as well as to
control them symbolically. Gradually, the value alters to be the obligation which
must be accepted everywhere, and soon it will be a new justification for people
to blame those improperly dressed according to it.
Clothes implies main religions’ conducts described through the religion
principles, for example here Islam (Arthur, Linda.B). When
it comes to Islam, whose followers are referred to as Muslims, and according to
The Koran as their holy book, Muslim women are required to dress
modestly, in this case, to cover their bodies, which actually encompasses the
principle of restricting their behaviors as well as to anticipate disrespectful
actions sexually. Islam itself is segregated
to moderate and conservative groups, which affect the code of clothing for the women
in particular. The conservative requires them to comply with the tradition, as
a way to combat the cultural assimilation from westernization through Islam
societies since the end of World War II.
In Indonesia, the idea of
assimilating religion principle, in this case Islam, as moral standard for
people’s life emerges as an accepted value when later to be an imposed norm
through some of formal provincial and
regional regulations. In contrast, for example, while women in the country
might enjoy openness based on a fair gender perspective to make them equal to men,
yet they have currently been facing conservatism in Islam to shift some values,
one of which relies on how to rule women’s clothes in public. The tendency to
adhere to Islamic values gets to be certain when recently it has been the likely
story to see women in veil in various terms of jobs, mostly in government
instances and other public institutions. For example, on 26 June 2020, The
Regent of Central Lombok, Moh.Suhaili Fadhil Thohir, instructed all Moslem
women civil servants to wear chador
instead of health masks to combat COVID pandemic. All of them, for the first
time on 3 July 2020, participated in the Friday’s routine sport wearing their
chador. The regent himself checked them one by one based on the chador requirement
on behalf of the Islamic value, and started to criticize the ones who were
still wearing long trousers instead of long dress as a part of chador
requirements. Throwing back in 2012, the similar regulation was applied in the
regency area of Bone Bolango in the province of Gorontalo,
explaining that all women civil servants had to wear formal Muslim attire as
instructed by the Regent through his deputy, Hamim Pou. He underlined that it
was a must in a purpose to support the regional principle of Bone Bolango
Bermartabat (the dignified Bone Bolango) as well as to provide the polite
impression in front of public.
The circumstance eventually
segregates Islamic women and non-Islamic ones despite the country’s obligation
to respect both of their rights with no exceptions. As well, it directs women
to comply with the principle when dressing appropriately. Unfortunately, the
conduct tends to be forced to non-Islamic women,
particularly students of high schools where the regions adopt the conduct, for
example in Aceh, where the Syariah principle is applied onto the regional law
completely, in Padang, West Sumatera, and some regions in Central Java
as well as other 21 provinces in Indonesia.
“Inappropriate “ Clothes Means
Justification for Sexual Violence and Harassments?
In accordance with the
above-mentioned religion value, clothes become another new moral standard which
particularly applies to women. They
thrive to be a parameter when seeing most cases of sexual violence and
harassment. The principle of women’s wearing any they prefer for their own
comfort is found against the applicable value in public (whether it is accepted
by collaborative consent or forced on behalf of the society’s will), and it is
very usual when religious value is promoted to support moral standardization through
the tools, such as clothes. It is taken as
a must, which actually for some women it is the optional matter because it is a
personal thing other people cannot interfere despite carrying the religion
behind.
What is taken ‘inappropriate’ in
terms of clothes? Inevitably, religions inspire their followers to act, to
behave, and lately, seldom do they treat
them as personal conducts, but more than that, they exactly prefer their peers
or other parts of public to conduct the same principle. This process somehow gains
a politicization, supported by politicians and religious leaders, as a result, not only can
it be another law product, but also a guidance which allows the justification
to victimize women through their clothes when encountering sexual violence and harassments.
In order to contrast the existence of westernization in daily attire, clothes usually
are directed to follow the religion values, imposed to more women to do so.
The tendency to justify the reason
most women are assaulted and harassed sexually as well as to victimize them due
to their clothes shows lack of human right and victim perspectives since they
keep being blamed no matter how bad the experience they have gained. Most people ignore the circumstance of religious environment where the people are
openly prone to sexual violence and harassment, as said by Fathkhurozi, a
director of Legal Resources Centre for Gender and Human Rights that
around the period of 2009-2012 approximately 85 girls and children were
assaulted sexually in the environment of Islamic boarding schools in Central
Java. Not only the assaults such as sodomy, rape, but also other forms of
violence, such as underage and forced marriage took place at most of the
places.
The perspective of attention towards
victims of sexual violence and harassment is on the need to be acknowledged without
focusing on their clothes and it should be properly introduced to all people,
not only the ones who are relevant to anticipate such cases. No women or men
should be facing any undermining practice. The thought to see anyone to get
such experience on account of their inappropriateness of their clothes should
be eliminated distantly from everybody’s mind.
Are we still going to blame the
victims on what they are wearing? Or are we going to start to listen to their
perspectives?
Bibliography :
6.
Arthur, Linda.B, Religion and Dress, https://fashion-history.lovetoknow.com/fashion-history-eras/religion-dress
7.
https://www.hrw.org/id/news/2020/07/08/375744 Diskriminasi Aturan Berpakaian Di Lombok Tetap Berlaku
Selama Pandemi COVID-19
https://republika.co.id/berita/nasional/umum/12/02/08/lz2nuk-di-bone-pns-wanita-wajib-berjilbab
9.
https://independensi.com/2018/08/25/siswi-kristen-wajib-pakai-jilbab-di-riau/
10.
https://www.vice.com/id_id/article/neayeg/kasus-sekolah-negeri-paksa-pelajar-pakai-hijab-terdeteksi-di-24-provinsi-indonesia