Indonesian makeup artist, Francesca Tanmizi, breaks down the Indonesian sex ban on premarital couples and how it could impact tourists.
Francesca Tanmizi recently broke down major loopholes in Indonesia’s recent sex ban on her TikTok. In the video, she highlighted how the laws will affect tourists, victims of sexual assault, and children with abusive parents.
“This law also applies to tourists, so if you’re planning to go on a trip to Bali with your significant other and you’re not legally married, do reconsider because do you really want to risk jail time for a holiday?”
One of the more controversial articles in the new code will criminalize extramarital sex as well as the cohabitation of unmarried couples., carrying a punishment of up to a year in prison. These laws are similar to the US’s move toward fundamentalist values, where the supreme court recently overturned Roe vs. Wade, leading to many states outlawing and criminalizing abortion.
The law will not take effect for another three years, and Indonesian officials are attempting to assuage the code’s critics by reassuring them that police require a complaint by a spouse, parent, or child to investigate.
“We understand these revisions will not come into force for three years, and we await further information on how the revisions will be interpreted as implementing regulations are drafted and finalised,” a spokeswoman from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said on Wednesday.
“DFAT continues to keep all our travel advisories under close review, including to regularly and carefully reassess the risks to Australians overseas and to provide the latest information. DFAT will continue to monitor the situation closely,” she continued.
However, Tanmizi pointed out that there are many loopholes for the law to be abused in order to enforce fundamentalist and misogynistic values, saying that the bill will have, “serious implications for rape victims”.
“If you fail to prove that it was non-consensual you can be hit by jail time — and if you think that there is no way this law is going to be abused it absolutely will,” she said.
To back up her claim, Tanmizi highlights a 2019 case in which a woman was jailed after reporting sexual harassment.
“Of course to report it she had to gather evidence, and apparently … just forwarding that evidence counted as breaking the anti-pornography laws,” she said. “That counted as ‘distributing pornography’, and she was jailed for it. So yes, this law absolutely can and will be abused.”
That ruling found Baiq Nuril Maknun guilty of spreading “indecent material” after recording a phone conversation with her boss in which he harassed her with sexually explicit advances. He reported her to the police in 2015 after the recording was circulated.
In 2019, the Supreme Court rejected Maknun’s appeal, finding her guilty of “violating decency,” and she was sentenced to six months in prison and fined 500 million rupiah.
“To everybody saying, ‘You’re married, this will protect your marriage, be happy’, well I will be devastated if my husband cheats on me but will I send him to jail for a year? No, because I’m not selfish,” she said.
“I’m not going to deprive my daughter of a father for one year. What if she’s older and hates his guts too? Oh great, then we can financially destroy him and have a bonfire with his things, but sending him to jail when there are worse crimes out there — kind of mental.”
In response to people saying “you can only be reported by a parent, a spouse or your child”, Tanmizi pointed out there are “abusive parents out there”.
“How would an abused child get away from his or her abusive parents now?” she said.
“Because wherever they’re running away to, they better hope there’s no member of the opposite sex because their crazy parents can use this law against them. Remember, just cohabitation is apparently ‘evidence’ that you have had sex.”
Tanmizi also made sure to highlight that people should be focusing on more than just the impact the law will have on tourists.
“Comments like these going that tourists won’t get affected because they won’t have anybody reporting them — first, FU for not caring about human rights unless it affects yours,” she said.
“Second, sexual assault happens. What if you’re sexually assaulted and you can’t find a guy. Do you dare report it to the police knowing you could be ‘self-reporting’ a crime. For all the naive people who are going, ‘Oh my God surely you can tell when someone’s been raped’, no. Victims of sexual assault always have problems proving that it’s non-consensual.”
She concluded by noting that “I’m sure a lot of people like the idea of the law in theory”.
“This will protect the institution of marriage, it sounds amazing in theory,” she said.
“But let’s be realistic — it has so many opportunities of abuse. Even though I’m happily married and I don’t want my husband to cheat on me, I’m not for this law.”
