 |
| Feminist Activist's Experience in Fighting against Intimidation |
Feminist Society - “A lawbreaker who wants to provide legal aid, want to atone for sins?” “Be careful when choosing a legal aid, if I'm not mistaken this woman has committed violence” — those are the intimidating words that Emanuella Malonda, — a Sulawesi Utara feminist activist, received when she fought for women’s rights while providing legal aid to a child who was a victim of rape.
The existence of these intimidating
words stems from Emanuella's personal problems in the past, having been a
victim of a toxic relationship with her ex-boyfriend who at that time was
almost brought to the legal realm (it was completed peacefully). With this past
incident, Emanuella became an easy target to be attacked as if she was
portrayed as someone who had legal problems, so it was not appropriate to
provide legal assistance. In fact, the problem had been resolved peacefully. The
intimidating verbal attacks came from a group of men who were friends of
Emanuella's ex-boyfriend and also suspected members of the Law Enforcement officer.
The worst thing is that they were all men, which seems to illustrate how women
have a very vulnerable status in our society.
The intimidation began with a case
that Emanuella and her Law Firm were trying to handle. In January 2024, they
were suddenly asked to be legal counsel in a case of sexual violence against
children that occurred in an area in North Minahasa Regency. Where it is
suspected that a minor was raped by 9 men.
Before Emanuella and her law firm
handled the case, the case had actually been reported to the authorities. But
unfortunately, the case was stalled in the process with various obstacles, so
when Emanuella and her law firm handled the case, in March 2024 they ultimately
decided to hold a press conference with the intention of being able to draw
public attention to the case so that it could help the law enforcement process.
It is validated that with the press
conference and the case being blown up in the media, the case became a boom and
could become a public concern. The press conference finally bore fruit, where
after the case boomed, the law enforcement process that had previously stalled
became clear where the case process finally ran. From 9 alleged perpetrators, 1
has reached the trial stage of witness examination, 4 people (adults) are at
the investigation stage, and 4 others (children) are still at the suspect
determination stage. This shows the significant role of Emanuella and her team
in helping the case progress.
But unfortunately, with the little
bright spot, it does not mean that Emanuella and her law firm's steps in
providing legal assistance can run smoothly. From the booming case, it turned
out to end with Emanuella being verbally intimidated. Emanuella deeply regrets
when there are people who want to fight for women's rights but receive
discriminatory and intimidating treatment. Moreover, these actions were carried
out by alleged law enforcement officers who in essence should provide good
examples and should not provide intimidating remarks that are tinged with
misogyny that are very detrimental to women.
With this, Emanuella felt that she
had been discriminated against and even criminalized by the alleged law
enforcement officers. In fact, in this case, Emanuella was doing a noble thing
to fight for the rights of other women by providing legal aid. The incident
left Emanuella devastated and even traumatized because her past problems were
brought up again which actually had nothing to do with the case she was
handling. At that time, she almost decided to withdraw and stop overseeing the
case because she felt traumatized by the attacks. However, with the support of
the people around her, Emanuella re-strengthened her determination and goal to
continue to be on the front lines of the struggle in defending women's rights
and protecting oppressed women.
Conditions such as the continued
prevalence of gender bias, lack of public awareness regarding the importance of
gender equality, and the vulnerability of women are things that motivate
Emanuella to continue to actively voice and fight for women's rights with the
aim that people around her can be helped and educated.
You can also read: Revealing Ika Lailatun Nikmah's Struggle in Pursuing Higher Education: Challenges for Javanese Women in Accessing Education
In an interview session with the
Feminist Society team, Emanuella hopes that more people will understand the
importance of gender equality, both the government and society in general. Then
Emanuella also hopes that in the future more youth will be involved and moved
to fight for women's rights. In addition, Emanuella hopes that cases such as
sexual violence against women, femicide, and so on can decrease in Indonesia in
general and in North Sulawesi in particular.
In that session, we also agreed on
two things. First, the Feminist Society will remain firm in supporting all
movements that fight for women's rights, therefore the Feminist Society
strongly condemns any acts of intimidation against those who fight for women's
rights. Second, we agreed to continue to work together and coordinate between
Emanuella and her law firm with the Feminist Society in voicing and fighting
for the rights of women and those who are oppressed. Where if in the future
there are developments in related issues, both parties will continue to
coordinate with each other.
Feminist Society also encourages
law enforcers who handle all stages of the law enforcement process in the related
case to be able to have a more victim and human rights perspective so that the
case can be clarified. This is in accordance with the provisions of Article 21
of Law Number 12 of 2022 concerning Criminal Acts of Sexual Violence which
mandates that investigators, public prosecutors, and judges who handle cases of
sexual violence must have the competence to handle cases from a human rights
and victim perspective.
If you have any case related to
gender equality or feminist issues and you need either advocacy assistance,
counseling, support for campaign media, or some kind of that, feel free to
contact us by this section. All of those things are free, you do not need to
pay anything, it is our commitment to promote progress in gender equality and
women’s rights through education and advocacy.
You can also contact us on:
Instagram : @feministsociety.id
Email : fem.official7@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment