The ICJR collected 32 case files on women facing death row in 2000-2020 and found that the majority of the women (57 percent) were either unemployed or housewives.
By
Kompas Team
·3 minutes read
KOMPAS/SONYA HELLEN SINOMBOR
Dian Septi Trisnanti, Marsinah FM Coordinator reads the statement of the position of the Women's Labor Association on Marsinah's Reflection Night: Completely Investigate Marsinah's Case, Defend Democracy, Saturday (8/5/2021). He questioned the commitment of the Indonesian government, which for 28 years had not resolved the case of human rights violations against Marsinah.
JAKARTA, KOMPAS — World Human Rights Day, which falls on 10 Dec., is an occasion to bring legal justice, especially for female convicts on death row, taking into account the vulnerability of women and the perspective of law enforcement.
A study by the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR) and the National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan) shows that the majority of women sentenced to death endured social, economical, or gender-based vulnerability.
The ICJR collected 32 case files on women facing death row in 2000-2020 and found that the majority of the women (57 percent) were either unemployed or housewives.
Most were convicted on drug charges, and others for homicide.
The others were private employees, farmers, blue-collar workers, domestic workers and civil servants. Most were convicted on drug charges, and others for homicide.
Rosita Said (39), a death row inmate with a drug conviction who was interviewed on Friday (12/3/2021) at the Class IIA Women's Prison in Jakarta, said that her husband, Nigerian Emeka Samuel, had ordered her to go find methamphetamine customers in their fifth month of marriage.
She was found guilty and sentenced to death in 2016 for her connection to the Emeka drug ring. Investigators confiscated 37 kilograms of methamphetamine.
“I was asked to find a customer. Being a woman, I might have been able to brush aside any suspicions," she said.
Kompas/Hendra A Setyawan
A mural of Munir's human rights fighter is depicted in the Buaran area, South Tangerang, Banten, Friday (5/3/2021).
Separately, Merry Utami, a migrant worker who was sentenced to death on a drug conviction, said that her Canadian boyfriend, Jerry, had entrusted her with a leather bag. She was apprehended at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in 2001. Inside the bag was 1.1 kilograms of heroin.
Komnas Perempuan commissioner Theresia Sri Endras Iswarini said that women who became involved with transnational drug networks were usually entrusted with luggage containing drugs, such as a suitcase, or first roped into a romantic relationship. Some were coerced into becoming drug couriers.
She added that three factors intersected in women who received the death penalty, namely gender-based violence, poverty and forced into drug crimes.
"No one deliberately enters the [drug trafficking] world. That's why these women are victims," she said.
Vulnerability
From the study on 32 cases of women on death row, according to ICJR researcher Maidina Rahmawati, the women's vulnerability was not always taken into account during their defense or by judges.
In fact, she said, the ICJR found gender-based vulnerability in the background of these women, who had been the victims of violence or child marriage, seduced into romantic relationships or were the breadwinners in their families.
There were also female death row convicts who did not receive maximum defense or legal assistance during the legal proceedings.
Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna H. Laoly said the state had tried to provide legal assistance to underprivileged citizens when dealing with the law, including women.
ISTIMEWA/HUMAS PEMPROV BALI
Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna H. Laoly .
Litigation or non-litigation legal services, he said, were offered free until the final verdict was issued.
In addition to its stipulation in Law No. 6/2011 on legal assistance, the issue is also mentioned in Law and Human Rights Ministerial Regulation No. 4/2021 on legal aid standards. (DEA/ANA/PDS)
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