Indonesia Bans Sex Outside Marriage

A new criminal code that bans having sex outside of marriage was enacted by the Indonesian parliament.

It was approved with the backing of all political parties and will apply to both Indonesian citizens and foreign visitors, carrying a possible prison sentence of up to a year. Additionally, a new legislation forbids unmarried couples from living together.

The government already forbids adultery but not sex outside of marriage, and the new law will not take effect for three years.

However, concerns exist regarding what this development will bring for tourism.

According to Maulana Yusran, deputy head of Indonesia’s tourism agency, the new rules are “totally counterproductive” as the nation works to recover from the COVID-19 outbreak.

“We deeply regret the government have closed their eyes. We have already expressed our concern to the ministry of tourism about how harmful this law is.”

The restrictions are anticipated to cause problems for the business community, particularly for those who frequently host and serve visitors and people from other countries.

For instance, Bali, which is largely dependent on tourism, is still recovering from the pandemic downturn that drove visitors away.

The restrictions will “make foreigners think twice” about visiting Indonesia, according to Putu Winastra, chairman of the Association of the Indonesian Tour and Travel Agencies (ASITA) in Bali, while speaking to a news source.

Putu questioned how the restrictions would be enforced and added, “From our point of view as tourism industry players, this law will be very troublesome.”

He inquired if they should ask unmarried foreigners if they were married or not. Putu claimed that any attempts to draw visitors back to the island may be “counterproductive” in light of the laws.

He claimed that if the regulations were actually put into effect, tourists might end up in jail, which would be bad for the industry.

The 200-page new criminal code has been in development for years.

A previous proposal was supposed to be approved in 2019, but thousands of protesters, mostly students, took to the streets to demand the government rescind it, forcing the vote to be postponed.

At the moment, President Joko Widodo announced in a televised address that he would postpone the vote after “carefully examining feedback from various parties who express issues on the certain substantial substance of the penal code.”

Amnesty’s Hamid highlighted that since 2019, “no substantive adjustments” have been made.

The amendment voted on Tuesday makes it so that having sex outside of marriage might result in a year in jail, however, there are limitations on who can file a formal complaint. For instance, it is legal for the parents of children who are living together before getting married to report it.

The code not only adds new offences but also makes existing rules and penalties more comprehensive. A proposal paper states that the maximum prison term for violating blasphemy laws has been raised from “one to six provisions” to five years.

According to Hamid, regulations prohibiting unpermitted protests and insulting the nation’s leaders will have a “chilling effect” on free speech.

He stated that the return of rules barring insults against the president and vice president, the current administration, as well as state institutions, would further produce a palpable stifling effect on freedom of speech and criminalise reasonable objections.

The restrictions, according to Human Rights Watch researcher in Indonesia Andreas Harsono, are a setback for already diminishing religious freedom in Indonesia” and could be abused to target particular people.

“The danger of oppressive laws is not that they’ll be broadly applied, it’s that they provide avenue for selective enforcement,” he said.

Law professor Hadi Rahmat Purnama of the University of Indonesia said the rules would go into effect after a three-year transitional period.