A Strong Woman’s Guts

KOMPAS/MACHRADIN WAHYUDI RITONGA

Sugih Hartini

With her past experience as a victim of domestic violence, Sugih Hartini, 42, is now counseling many maltreated women. She has faced frequent intimidation. Instead of being daunted, she’s grown even stronger.

On Sunday (7/3/2021), Sugih visited Mrs. U (55), a resident of Cipaku village, Paseh district, Bandung regency, West Java. On that day, Mrs. U was accompanied by her daughter, I, 23. Unlike her mother, I gave a grimmer gaze.

The mother and child receive counseling from Yayasan Sapa, a foundation for women who have fallen victim to violence in Bandung regency. Since 2020, Sugih has been a Case Handling Coordinator of this institute.

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U and I are victims of domestic violence. U receives no more financial support from her husband. The man has also left I, who is mentally ill. Ironically, I has also been an abuse victim of another man. Married three years ago, her spouse neglected her.

With Sugih and Yayasan Sapa, U and I secured advocacy. The legal assistance was fruitful. I obtained a certificate of divorce, while the lawsuit filed by U against her husband had to be canceled because his address could no longer be found.

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Sugih said she had helped handle dozens of cases out of around a hundred reports in 2020. Cases of domestic violence and violence against migrant workers constituted the majority, each totaling 45 reports.

KOMPAS/MACHRADIN WAHYUDI RITONGA

Sugih Hartini.

Being stalked

Counseling victims of violence has made Sugih accustomed to intimidation. She was once rebuked and accused of interfering with another’s family affairs. In fact, Yayasan Sapa acts on the basis of victims’ reports.

An example was the time when she handled a divorce case at the end of 2020. The victim reported her husband’s maltreatment. During their initial trial, the husband accused Sugih of being sent by the other man of his wife. “The motorcycle of my peer was marked by the victim’s husband. We even had to bow down in a car when we went out of the court’s parking lot. Her husband was waiting at the gate,” she related.

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Her guts to face various forms of intimidation were not just automatically acquired by Sugih. Her bitter experience in the past has taught her how to perform her tasks today. Like the victims she is assisting, Sugih was once a domestic abuse victim. In 2005, her husband cheated on her and married the other woman. After living without her spouse’s support and care for two years, she sought a divorce.

Thereafter, she left her home in Bandung city and lived with her parents in Cipaku village. Along with her three children, she started a new life in the village in 2007.

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In the same year, Cipaku village was flooded with job offers to become Indonesian migrant workers (PMI). Almost every month a number of villagers left to work abroad. A village resident happened to be a PMI broker. “I was offered to be employed as a PMI. I considered (accepting) but then I canceled it for preferring to stay with my children. The job was unclear and the children’s future could be in a mess if I ventured to leave,” she faintly recalled.

KOMPAS/MACHRADIN WAHYUDI RITONGA

Sugih Hartini.

Later, she came across women from Bale Istri Paseh, fostered by Yayasan Sapa. It means a shelter for housewives. Although most of its members are primary school graduates, the level of their activity goes beyond their formal education. With them, she discovered the reality that many women suffered a lot more than she did.

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After chatting with them, Sugih was prompted to start business by making kecimpring, a cassava snack. In 2013, she joined the Sapa Institute entrepreneurship program to obtain initial capital ranging from less than Rp200,000 to Rp2 million. Her business thrived, enabling her to give entrepreneurship counsels to the aid recipients of Yayasan Sapa, mostly being violence and discrimination survivors.

Through her counseling, Sugih earned the Sabilulungan Award from the Bandung regency administration in 2015 as the Motivator of Small and Medium Enterprise Development and Women’s Empowerment. Up to the present, Sugih continues her business amid the pandemic despite her income’s drastic drop.

Palace invitation

By frequently recounting her experience and having discussions with violence survivors, Sugih finally joined Yayasan Sapa as counseling volunteers in 2017. She got various kinds of training on counseling as well as mediator certification.

“At the beginning of training I was less confident as the other participants were college graduates of law, while I was just a senior high school graduate. But the certificate is needed to formally serve as a mediator. Inevitably, I had to join. I finally passed although I was required to write a working paper,” she said.

At the beginning of training I was less confident as the other participants were college graduates of law, while I was just a senior high school graduate.

Kompas

Sugih Hartini is active in the cassava chips business.

Her experience and knowledge were recognized by many circles including court officials. So, she was offered the job of mediator in court. However, she declined it for the reason of wishing to keep working as violence victims’ counsellor.

Sugih’s consistence brought her into the Presidential Palace on International Women’s Day. She arrived along with 15 women as village development motivators from all over the country. “We 16 people were asked to give our views about women’s problems. Sadly, only four were selected in the end to meet with the President. I was very nervously memorizing the text (that would have had) to be presented,” she said.

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At the time, Sugih wanted to convey her support for the Bill on the Elimination of Sexual Violence (RUU PKS). This rule, in her view, will provide legal protection for victims of domestic abuse and discrimination. “Although I lost the chance, my voice will hopefully be heard,” she pleaded.

Yayasan Sapa Executive Chairperson Sri Mulyati said the role of Sugih and the other housewives were expected to be emulated by many women in Bandung regency to set them free from violence. Without payments, they record data on cases of early-age marriages, neglected PMI as well as those of physical and psychological violence. So far, there are 10 Bale Istri groups in Bandung regency, each with 20-200 members.

Sugih keeps moving forward with violence victims who have and have not yet voiced their grievances.

Sugih Hartini

Born: Bandung, 4 July 1978

Education: Bupi Majalaya Senior High School (1996 graduate)

This article was translated by Aris Prawira