Rape case tests limits of juvenile court system

Published The Jakarta Post, July 08, 2006

Tri broke into tears as she recalled how her youngest daughter was raped by four boys at her school in Trenggalek, East Java.

The housewife remains unable to come to terms with the suffering of her 11-year-old daughter, "Kuntum".

"My poor daughter, she had to suffer a nightmare that every woman fears at such a young age, being a rape victim," she told The Jakarta Post.

The student at an elementary school in Trenggalek was allegedly raped by the four boys on several different occasions. The suspects, one aged 12 the others 11, have been held at Trenggalek prison since June 28 while awaiting trial, which is scheduled to begin Monday.

Tri says her daughter was raped several times -- in an empty classroom, the library and a bathroom.

The nightmare began in the middle of May, when a math class was canceled and Kuntum was allegedly forced by the four boys into the boy's bathroom. Tri said at first Kuntum took it as a joke, but when she tried to leave the boys forced her back into the bathroom.

She says the assailants stripped her daughter naked, touched her and then took turns raping her. Tri said they punched her daughter when she attempted to call out for help.

"At first, I didn't believe it, but that's what happened. After that, Kuntum reported the incident to one of the teachers but was ignored," Tri said.

Several days after the first assault, the boys attacked her again, this time in an empty classroom and then in the school library.

"Kuntum did not want to tell me about it, afraid that I would be angry," she said.

The attack became public when someone reported the matter to a local journalist, who wrote a story about the alleged rape.

Kuntum's parents immediately went to the police. "A medical exam showed bruising on my daughter's vagina and found signs that it had been penetrated by a foreign object," she said.

Police investigating the case named the four boys as suspects. They have been charged with violating several articles of the Criminal Code.

One of judges scheduled to hear Monday's trial, Didi Ismiatun, said the court would consider whether the four boys should be punished for their alleged actions. "The maximum penalty is 15 years in jail and up to a Rp 30 million (US$3,260) fine," he said.

According to Nonot Soeryono, a coordinator with the Surabaya Children's Crisis Center (SCCC), which is part of the non-governmental organization Plan Surabaya Indonesia, rape cases involving minors were difficult to handle because justice had to be done, without forgetting that the victims and suspects were children.

On the victim's side, he said, authorities had to do a full investigation to determine whether rape had occurred.

"Technically speaking, it has to be determined whether there has been a rape, based on medical and legal views," Nonot told the Post.

And when dealing with the suspects, authorities must make sure they are not treated as adult criminals.

He said legally, children had a limited ability to differentiate between right and wrong, making their actions different from those of an adult. He emphasized that putting the four suspects in this case in an adult prison was against the law.

According to information gathered by the Post, the four suspects are being held in a single cell, separated from the adult inmates. The regency does not have separate facilities for child criminals and criminal suspects.

Plan Surabaya Indonesia, through the SCCC, has provided the boys with legal assistance. It also has sent a letter to the National Commission for the Protection of Children and the Trenggalek Prosecutor's Office, asking that the four boys be released from the prison and returned to the custody of their parents.

"Don't repeat the mistakes of Raju's case in Medan. We're trying to uphold the law, not torture children with acts of violence," Nonot said.

He was referring to the March trial of 8-year-old Muhammad Azwar, also known as Raju, in an adult court in Langkat regency, North Sumatra.

Raju's trial was heavily criticized by children's rights groups, which said it was inhumane and unnecessary. The court found Raju guilty of assaulting Armansyah, 14, and returned him to his parents' custody. Prosecutors detained Raju in an adult prison before his trial.

According to a 1997 law on juvenile courts, any trial involving a juvenile should involve the child, his or her parents or legal guardians, a defense lawyer and witnesses.

Speaking from Jakarta on Thursday, the National Commission for the Protection of Children urged the Trenggalek Prosecutor's Office and the court to release the four boys and provide them with counseling.

"Children under the age of 12 cannot be treated like adults, even if they may have committed a crime. The prosecutor's office has acted against the law," said commission secretary-general Arist Merdeka Sirait.

Based on the 1997 law, he said the four boys must be detained in a place where there are no adult prisoners, like a Muslim boarding school.

Seto Mulyadi, the commission's head and also a psychologist, said the children were victims of the lack of controls over the distribution of pornographic materials, as well as the pressure put on them by the school as high-achieving students.

"According to Freud's theory, the sex drive comes at their age and it can be uncontrollable if they are under pressure and if their surroundings show them ways to express it," he said.

Seto said the boys' case was similar to Raju's. "It looks like Indonesia's juvenile court system has yet to learn from that case."

The director of child welfare at the Social Affairs Ministry, Makmur Sunusi, said earlier the country had not yet developed a proper juvenile court system.

Raju's trial, he said, also showed the juvenile criminal system was failing to protect children's rights, adding there was a need to revise the law on juvenile courts.