JAKARTA: Indonesia’s National Commission on Violence Against Women, or Komnas Perempuan (KP), recorded last year an increase in violence against women, mainly in private domain, by 25 percent from 259,150 reported cases in 2016 to 348,447 in 2017.
A KP commissioner, Thaufiek Zulbahary, told Arab News that the commission also recorded a rising trend of incest and cyber-based violence against women, in which women fell victim to bogus work recruitment, cyber harassment, malicious distribution, online defamation and infringement of their privacy, among others.
“Cyber-based violence has emerged massively but there’s a lack of reporting and handling of the cases. Cyber-based violence degrades women’s lives. They can fall victim to it more than once and the case affects them for the rest of their life,” Zulbahary told Arab News.
The KP released its annual report on violence against women on March 8 every year since 2001 in conjunction with the International Women’s Day. The commission recorded cases of violence against women that occur at private, community and state level.
“Cases of abuse against women are increasing in varied forms while response from the authorities remains slow. The trend also shows that the perpetrators are those in the productive age bracket,” Zulbahary said.
Another KP commissioner, Mariana , told Arab News that husbands being abusive to their wives constitute the largest part of the reported cases occurring in private domain, with 5,167 cases, followed by 2,227 cases of violence against daughters or young girls and 1,873 cases of abusive dates.
The report also recorded 1,210 cases of incest committed by older males.
Human trafficking cases involving women tricked into bogus recruitment by men in their community also marked violence against women at community level.
Most of these women were lured into recruitment with the promise to work as a migrant worker in neighboring Malaysia or Middle Eastern countries, where domestic workers from Indonesia are in high demand, despite a government-imposed moratorium on placement of Indonesian domestic workers to 21 countries in the Middle East since 2015 following a string of abuse cases of Indonesian migrant workers by their employers.
Tyas Weningsih Putri was a victim of trafficking when she tried her luck to work in a bird’s nest cultivation factory in Malaysia. It was her second time to work as a migrant worker in Malaysia so she was able to sense that something was wrong when her local ID bears an address that is different with the location of the factory where she worked.
She told Arab News that she did not receive the 900 ringgit salary that was promised to her and when the police raided the factory in March 2017, she wasn’t immediately freed but had to endure another two months in jail on immigration violation charges. She was freed in May and had returned to her hometown in Kendal, Central Java now.
The KP urged the Parliament to pass the Violence Against Women Bill into a law while ensuring it has a gender perspective of human rights and protection to victims.
“The police also has to start thorough documentation on femicides so they can have a map on what causes the problem and determine steps to prevent and deal with the cases,” said KP Deputy Chairwoman Yuniyanti Chuzaifah.
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Violence against women remains rampant in Indonesia
Violence against women remains rampant in Indonesia
China executes 11 linked to Myanmar scam compounds
- Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users have flourished across Southeast Asia
- The 11 people executed Thursday were sentenced to death in September by a court in Wenzhou
BEIJING: China executed 11 people linked telecom scam operations, on Thursday, state media reported, as Beijing toughens its response to the sprawling, transnational industry.
Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in the lawless borderlands of Myanmar.
Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world.
Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work.
In recent years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation with regional governments to crack down on the compounds, and thousands of people have been repatriated to face trial in China’s opaque justice system.
The 11 people executed Thursday were sentenced to death in September by a court in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou, state news agency Xinhua said, adding that the court also carried out the executions.
Crimes of those executed included “intentional homicide, intentional injury, unlawful detention, fraud and casino establishment,” Xinhua said.
The death sentences were approved by the Supreme People’s Court in Beijing, which found that the evidence produced of crimes committed since 2015 was “conclusive and sufficient,” the report said.
Among the executed were “key members” of the notorious “Ming family criminal group,” whose activities had contributed to the deaths of 14 Chinese citizens and injuries to “many others,” Xinhua added.
Fighting fraud ‘cancer’
Fraud operations centered in Myanmar’s border regions have extracted billions of dollars from around the world through phone and Internet scams.
Experts say most of the centers are run by Chinese-led crime syndicates working with Myanmar militias.
The fraud activities — and crackdowns by Beijing — are closely followed in China.
Asked about the latest executions, a spokesman for Beijing’s foreign ministry said that “for a while, China has worked with Myanmar and other countries to combat cross-border telecom and Internet fraud.”
“China will continue to deepen international law enforcement cooperation” against “the cancer of gambling and fraud,” spokesman Guo Jiakun told a regular press conference.
The September rulings that resulted in Thursday’s executions also included death sentences with two-year reprieves to five other individuals.
Another 23 suspects were given prison sentences ranging from five years to life.
In November, Chinese authorities sentenced five people to death for their involvement in scam operations in Myanmar’s Kokang region.
Their crimes had led to the deaths of six Chinese nationals, according to state media reports.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime warned in April that the cyberscam industry was spreading across the world, including to South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and some Pacific Islands.
The UN has estimated that hundreds of thousands of people are working in scam centers globally.
Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in the lawless borderlands of Myanmar.
Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from victims around the world.
Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work.
In recent years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation with regional governments to crack down on the compounds, and thousands of people have been repatriated to face trial in China’s opaque justice system.
The 11 people executed Thursday were sentenced to death in September by a court in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou, state news agency Xinhua said, adding that the court also carried out the executions.
Crimes of those executed included “intentional homicide, intentional injury, unlawful detention, fraud and casino establishment,” Xinhua said.
The death sentences were approved by the Supreme People’s Court in Beijing, which found that the evidence produced of crimes committed since 2015 was “conclusive and sufficient,” the report said.
Among the executed were “key members” of the notorious “Ming family criminal group,” whose activities had contributed to the deaths of 14 Chinese citizens and injuries to “many others,” Xinhua added.
Fighting fraud ‘cancer’
Fraud operations centered in Myanmar’s border regions have extracted billions of dollars from around the world through phone and Internet scams.
Experts say most of the centers are run by Chinese-led crime syndicates working with Myanmar militias.
The fraud activities — and crackdowns by Beijing — are closely followed in China.
Asked about the latest executions, a spokesman for Beijing’s foreign ministry said that “for a while, China has worked with Myanmar and other countries to combat cross-border telecom and Internet fraud.”
“China will continue to deepen international law enforcement cooperation” against “the cancer of gambling and fraud,” spokesman Guo Jiakun told a regular press conference.
The September rulings that resulted in Thursday’s executions also included death sentences with two-year reprieves to five other individuals.
Another 23 suspects were given prison sentences ranging from five years to life.
In November, Chinese authorities sentenced five people to death for their involvement in scam operations in Myanmar’s Kokang region.
Their crimes had led to the deaths of six Chinese nationals, according to state media reports.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime warned in April that the cyberscam industry was spreading across the world, including to South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and some Pacific Islands.
The UN has estimated that hundreds of thousands of people are working in scam centers globally.
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