JAKARTA - The Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs (Menko Polhukam) Mahfud MD reap criticism.
The reason was Mahfud used an example of a rape case to explain the concept of restorative justice when he was a speaker at the Police Leadership Meeting (Rapim), Wednesday, February 17.
"For example, if Siti was raped, if the rapist wants to be firmly arrested, the rapist is finished. But restorative justice does not talk about it. Restorative justice says, if we arrest Amir as a rapist and then announce that he raped Siti, Siti's family will be destroyed", said the former Chief Justice of the Court. This constitution.
"So because of that, in customary law, there was a term you just ran away so people didn't know. That's why there used to be kawin lari (eloping). It was restorative so people would not be noisy. What was raped was not ashamed of the whole village, got married outside the area, That's an example of restorative justice. Building harmony", Mahfud added.
Regarding Mahfud's statement, giving an example of this rape case was responded to by Institute of Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR) researcher Maidina Rahmawati. The ICJR criticized Mahfud's statement and called it a false example.
Maidina assessed that restorative justice should be present in line with strengthening the rights of victims and resolving victims' recovery with dispute resolution mechanisms or cases that create accountability for the perpetrators.
"RJ (restorative justice) is not about silencing the rights of victims to get pseudo harmony in society", said Maidina, Thursday, February 18.
In the case of rape, restorative justice called Maidina can be applied. "But still the central point that must be fought for is to listen and provide space for victims to convey their losses, make the perpetrators aware of their actions and understand the impact of their actions", she said.
Maidina said Mahfud's statement that the perpetrator and victim were married in order to maintain harmony and the good name of the family was also a bad example of a practice that was not in line with the concept of restorative justice.
"This statement is also not in favor of efforts to provide strengthening arrangements for the rights of victims of rape or sexual violence", she explained.
In fact, based on data from the 2016 Lentera Sintas Indonesia survey of 25,213 respondents to sexual violence victims, it was found that 93 percent of rape victims did not report their cases because they were afraid of blaming the victim's narrative.
Another survey from IICJR and Infid in 2020 also showed that 57.4 percent of respondents who had experienced sexual violence stated that law enforcement officials were not responsive to cases of sexual violence. Thus, Mahfud's statement as an authority was considered not to side with the victim.
Therefore, Maidina urged the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Mahfud MD to straighten up and clarify his statement.
"As well as providing assurance that the implementation of RJ must be understood by all levels of government and law enforcement officials to put the interests and recovery of victims as the main focus", he concluded.
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