Child rapists in Indonesia will face tougher punishments, including the death penalty and chemical castration, the president said on May 25.
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Mr. Joko said that “sexual violence against children has increased significantly” in Indonesia, although his government has not provided data to back his assertions.
The new regulation amends a Child Protection Law issued in 2002 that carried a maximum 15-year prison sentence for persons having intercourse with a minor. However, given the decree signed by Widodo is a presidential emergency decree it will have immediate effect (although the DPR can overturn it at a later stage).
The move comes after a teenage girl was gang-raped and murdered by a group of 14 men and boys while walking home from school in Bengkulu province, in Sumatra, in early May.
The local news media has cited the country’s National Commission on Violence Against Women as saying that around 35 Indonesian women a day are victims of sexual violence. Other forms of punishment included in the bill extend to life imprisonment, as well as a minimum of 10 to 20 years in jail.
Indonesia’s introduction of the death penalty and chemical castration for child sex offenders won applause from the public Thursday, May 26 but activists warned the punishments would not serve as a deterrent.
“An extraordinary crime deserves an exceptional response”, he said. It is a legal form of punishment in South Korea, Poland and the Czech Republic, as well as in some US and Australian states.
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The new decree also allows judges to mandate that convicted sex offenders wear electronic tags, such as microchips in their legs, upon their release from prison. Chemical castration reduces a person’s libido and is considered a controversial way of dealing with sex crimes. “Chemical castration on its own addresses none of thee needs and medical interventions should be used, if at all, only as part of a skilled treatment program, not as a punishment”, she said.
