Rabu, 13 Maret 2013

Women’s Day, and wives – one to four


Women’s Day, and wives – one to four
Ati Nurbaeti   A Staff Writer at The Jakarta Post
JAKARTA POST, 10 Maret 2013

  
First, there was Sutarmi. Then there was Dipta Anindita, a former teenage pageant queen from Surakarta. Then there was Mahdiana, followed by reports of someone else. All the women are believed to be wives of disgraced police officer Djoko Susilo, the former leader of the National Police Traffic Corps (Korlantas) who is being investigated for corruption.

Did the first wife, Sutarmi, give permission for her man to take up these additional wives? No one would be surprised if she had known nothing about the marriages, though her permission would have been a legal prerequisite to Djoko’s polygamy.

The three additional marriages are suspected as Djoko’s means of covering up illegally gained assets, according to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), which has uncovered several houses, plots of land and bank accounts. 

A man must prove he will be just and non-discriminatory toward all his wives. So, in a harmonious polygamous arrangement he cannot, for instance, give wife number one a house valued at Rp 1 billion, wife number two a house of Rp 3 billion and wife number three the grandest mansion of all. Sooner or later complaints will arise — around the inconvenient timing of the KPK investigation.

We will have to wait for months while the investigators figure out which wives own houses one to 11, or whether all these assets are in the names of their cousins’ cousins’ wives, hence, making it increasingly hard to forge a link to Djoko.

As Indonesia and the world celebrated International Women’s Day on March 8, Djoko Susilo’s case suggests that it is business as usual — despite decades of women’s rights campaigns. 

Surely these women — apart from Sutarmi — knew more or less what they were getting into when the respected and aging police officer proposed to them — unless they were really naïve. 

It might have been easy for officer Djoko to bribe the officials in charge of marriages in Surakarta, Yogyakarta and other cities, and one may suspect he had plenty to offer the families of the three women, to the point that they could set aside any suspicions that he was not altogether an honest, rich bachelor.

Djoko is certainly displaying a creative way to disguise his ill-gotten wealth, if the KPK can prove its case. 

But at the other end of the spectrum, the women accepting his proposals clearly reflect an ever-available market of willing brides for potential suitors who possess a lot of cash; regardless of whether they may become wife number two, three or more.

These women would not necessarily have come from poor families – poor is a relative term; you may be considered poor if you own two cars but your neighbor has two more.

As the Constitution says, every citizen is entitled to improve their quality of life, and that is what these women may have been doing, even if they knew they were not marrying a rich bachelor.

In West Java, the mountain resort of Puncak is famous, or infamous, for its women who marry Middle Eastern men on a contract basis. Some have managed to secure property and homes during a one- to two-year marriage; hence the incentive for many more to seek such contracts, which may be clearer in terms of their rights compared to other types of unregistered unions.

Since many second and subsequent marriages are not registered, which leaves the women concerned in a state of legal limbo, rights activists say a majority of complaints reported to their offices come from neglected wives, whether wife number one or six.

One tragic case reported earlier this week, concerned a woman who was murdered and her body mutilated, with her body parts being strewn across a toll road. In such a case, one wonders whether the victim may have found out that her husband was having an affair and then questioned him about it — with fatal consequences.

International Women’s Day this year carried the theme of “Gaining Momentum”. 

In Indonesia, the question may be how we can use the publicity surrounding recent crimes and abuse against women to maximum effect. 

In recent months, there have been rapes and murders committed against girls and young women; the blithe statement of a justice candidate who said rape victims may have enjoyed the intercourse; the case of the Garut regent who divorced his teenage wife by text message, saying she was not a virgin as he had expected; and police reports filed by wives of local officials in Tasikmalaya in West Java and Magelang, Central Java, who said their husbands had secretly remarried and cheated on them. 

All these cases occurred as the global One Billion Rising campaign, which was triggered by the gang rape and murder of a university student in New Delhi, gathered momentum.

What unites the campaign to bring an end to such cases — whether rape, neglect or cheating on wives — is the solidarity among the activists for their female sisters, who are still considered dispensable in so many countries.

Such ill-treatment and crimes continue to be committed by men from all walks of life; from the lowly vendor who mutilated his wife, all the way up to men in senior positions.

With regard to Pak Djoko, his innocence must be presumed unless and until there is proof to the contrary, and we must assume that his polygamous arrangement was harmonious.

Nevertheless, some Indonesians are acquiring increasingly sophisticated ways to expand and hide their ill-gotten gains. However, we should know by now that it is easier to fool the law than to feign equal love to wives one to four. ● 

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