the pre proposal design

Pre Research Study Proposal for IDRC Scholarship Application
Gender Studies Asian Institute of Technology
Thailand, for the term of August 2006
Composed by Mr Fanny Syariful Alam

“DOMESTIC ABUSE, AS A REFLECTION ON THE RELATION OF CULTURAL ROOT AND A NATURAL ACCEPTANCE ON WOMEN IN INDONESIA”


I. Research Background

The Law no 23/2004 Republic of Indonesia which outlines women’s rights in handling domestic abuse cases has been approved and recorded as the one having a primary purpose that any married woman can pursuit legal actions based on the valid law if any domestic abuse case occurs in their marriage life. The Ministry of Women Empowerment and Affairs of Republic of Indonesia has noted that many of the women as the victim must get a serious attention being covered by the law and any related case will involve the legal apparatus and networks.

It is observed as a big step for women’s history in Indonesia, remembering that along the past periods most of them, experiencing the domestic abuse cases physically, verbally, and mentally even, have always become the marginalized people and have not been able to create an advantageous bargaining power personally, socially and legally. Besides having no any specific law regulating the abuse cases, publics tended to end the cases by committing peace action or divorce between wives and husbands. The Research from one institution (Independent Volunteers network) working in Bandung, West Java, shows that before the issuing of the Law, there were many married women from any class and education background experiencing the domestic violence significantly and technically most of them had not got any idea where to ask for supports and to report the cases categorized as a part of crimes. Generally any type of domestic abuse cases may happen without taking a look if the women come from the class and strata. This information eliminates the premise that the cases only take a part in women in a low-level economy and low education background family.

The Law shows some well planned legal actions for post abuse actions which can be applicable for the women in hope to get much further actions and a legal protection, consequently, any legal process may be applicable to the actors of any domestic abuse cases without interfering and creating such a fear for the women as the victims.

Along with the development and the socialization of the Law no 23/2004, there has been a building of expectation leading to the reduction of the domestic abuse cases levels, yet, the reality in the field proves that the levels increase gradually from the research taken quantitatively, and even some of the cases stay stagnant without any clear solution. This condition even has grown worse by lack of access to the supporting apparatus and network. The unacknowledgement of the women about the type of services offered and the ways of reporting the domestic abuse cases generally still stay high. It is also the matter uncovering the fact that the existence of the Law no 23/2004 is still in a great doubt of the effectiveness regarding to the situation which there are a lot of the cases meeting the dead end or cut off in the middle process. This causes the prediction of some leading factors in accordance with the stagnancy of the Law implementation in field.


II. Leading Factors To The Ineffectiveness of The Law no 23/2004

Briefly there are three major factors of the ineffectiveness of the Law no 23/2004, as follows:
a. Social and culture Factor
b. The Women themselves
c. Lack of socialization and information.

Those factors mentioned above will be described more in Chapter 4 of this thesis. Generally the factors are the prediction why there seems to be the ineffectiveness of the law which ideally may eradicate the levels of the domestic abuse cases.


III. Purpose of Research

The research described in this thesis has a main purpose to analyze further about the three major factors mentioned in part II so that there will be some more applicative solutions for the women as the victims in the domestic abuse cases in hope to get more optimal quality of the service from the law and finally it will lead to the elimination of the domestic abuse cases. It sounds ideal for sure, yet, in the long term it can be achieved by having a solid coordination to do a breakthrough solution to those factors mentioned in part II, having a better coordination for all apparatus and networks to create and maintain any applicative solution for the women.


IV. Research Methodology

The research is conducted in accordance to the qualitative and quantitative survey involving several official data in our region, Bandung, West Java Indonesia, journal and literature studies. This research also involve the result from the discussion from the Focus Group Discussion about the women in domestic abuse and socialization of the Law no 23/2004 which are processed to give more different overview about what has really happened and what it must take as a part of better solutions in the future.