Every day across Indonesia, thousands of women and children wake up dreading not just poverty or uncertainty—but violence in the “safe” spaces that should protect them. With over 36,000 cases of gender-based violence recorded by the Indonesian National Police (POLRI) in 2025 alone, and only around 12.8 percent of cases resolved, the grim reality is clear: the crisis of violence against women in Indonesia continues to deepen.
In a recent assessment by researchers from University of Indonesia (UI), glaring gaps emerged in how institutions handle cases of sexual violence against children. The team found that victims—not perpetrators—often end up bearing stigma, and that many regions, especially the neglected 3T (Terdepan, Terluar, Tertinggal — Frontier, Outermost, Disadvantaged) areas, lack safe houses or professional psychological support for survivors. This is not an isolated problem, but part of a broader pattern: domestic violence, child abuse, trafficking, digital harassment and systemic neglect continue to prey upon the vulnerable.
The numbers tell a chilling story. According to the national statistics aggregated by the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan) and its partners, 2024 ended with a staggering 445,502 reported cases of violence against women (VAW)—nearly a 11 percent increase over the previous year. Among those, more than 330,000 were classified as gender-based violence against women (GBVW), and over 309,000 occurred in the personal sphere—inside homes, among family or intimate partners. Studies investigating domestic violence in Indonesia point to deeply entrenched factors: entrenched patriarchal norms, economic stressors, early marriage, power imbalance and cultural tolerance of “disciplinary” violence within households.
In 2025, the lifeblood of this conversation is shifting: where once silence and shame ruled, more victims are now “speaking up”. In the capital alone, the local government’s child-protection agency reported that by late November 2025, more than 1,900 cases of violence against women and children had already been recorded — a number nearly matching the total for all of 2024. Authorities interpret the rise as a sign that growing awareness and improved reporting channels — from offline complaint desks to mobile counselling units — encourage more survivors to come forward.
Yet awareness is not enough when the response remains fundamentally broken. UI’s study revealed that in many child sexual-violence cases, perpetrators are often those closest to victims: family members, teachers, community leaders — people whom children should trust. And even when assaults are reported, the lack of safe shelters, mental-health rehabilitation services, and social-work infrastructure means many survivors are left to fend for themselves. It is a failure not only of law enforcement, but of society — of institutions that should protect, and a system that repeatedly fails to deliver justice.
The legal foundation exists. Law No. 23 of 2004 on the Elimination of Domestic Violence criminalizes physical, sexual, psychological and economic violence in the household. And yet, decades later, much remains to turn laws into lived protections: community-level tolerance of domestic abuse, “mediation” through customary norms (adat) rather than criminal proceedings, and courts that treat non-physical or repeated abuse as minor, episodic, or non-legally actionable.
At its core, the epidemic of violence against women in Indonesia is not simply a legal failing — it’s a cultural one. The deeply rooted notion that issues like “kekerasan dalam rumah tangga” (domestic violence) are private, family-internal matters continues to silence victims. The normalization of male dominance and “disciplinary” control fuels the cycle. Ending this requires more than laws — it demands a cultural shift: through education, gender-sensitivity training, economic empowerment for women, and societal reckoning with gender inequality.
There are glimmers of hope. Regional governments are beginning to revise local regulations; non-government organisations and civil-society coalitions are amplifying victims’ voices; and survivors are at last being heard rather than blamed. But turning that hope into safety — transforming “berani speak up” (bravely speaking up) into “berani hidup aman” (bravely living safe) — will require long-term commitment, honest conversations about power and gender, and tangible investment in protective institutions.
In the face of mounting statistics, each number represents a human being — a woman, a child, a survivor whose scars are often invisible but deeply real. Until Indonesia treats violence against women not as a private shame, but a public emergency, the tapestry of fear, silence and impunity will continue to thread itself through the homes and lives of too many.
How to treat this topic in only four hundred words? Oh, POLRI generals, you’ve earned every single one of them.
Let’s start with your numbers. Thirty-something thousand cases of violence against women recorded, and barely more than one in ten resolved? That’s not law enforcement, that’s statistical theater. It’s not “progress”, it’s not “complexity”, and it’s certainly not “cultural challenges”. It’s failure. Plain, institutional, uniformed failure. When women see those numbers, what they read is simple: report if you must, but don’t expect justice.
You like uniforms, ranks, medals, press conferences. You like parading success stories when a drug lord is caught or a terror cell is dismantled. But violence against women? Suddenly it’s “family matter”, “miscommunication”, “mediation”, or my favorite classic: “please settle this amicably”. Amicably? With a man who beat, raped, threatened or groomed her? Tell me, Pak Jenderal, would you advise mediation if this were your daughter?
Indonesian women are told to trust POLRI, to report kekerasan dalam rumah tangga (domestic violence), kekerasan seksual (sexual violence), pelecehan (harassment). And then what happens? They face officers who ask what they were wearing, why they went out, why they didn’t scream, why they waited. Trauma is dissected like a suspicious alibi, while perpetrators sip kopi and go home. Trust doesn’t survive interrogation rooms like that.
You hide behind “lack of resources”. Funny how resources magically appear for riot gear, surveillance toys and social media units policing moral behavior. But shelters? Trained female investigators? Trauma-informed procedures? Suddenly the budget evaporates. Women are told to be patient while bruises fade and evidence expires.
Let’s talk about power. Many perpetrators are not strangers in dark alleys. They are husbands, fathers, uncles, teachers, religious figures, local elites. That’s inconvenient, I know. It requires courage to confront men with status, connections, uniforms of their own. But policing is not supposed to be convenient. It’s supposed to protect the vulnerable, not the powerful.
And don’t get me started on “rising reports mean rising awareness”. That’s a half-truth dangerously close to self-congratulation. Awareness without protection is not empowerment. It’s exposure. You are asking women to step into the light while leaving them standing there, unshielded, facing retaliation, gossip, economic ruin.
So here’s my question, POLRI generals: why should women trust you again? Trust is not rebuilt with slogans, hotlines or posters. It is rebuilt with arrests, prosecutions, convictions, survivor support and respectful treatment from the first report to the final verdict.
Until then, your badges shine, but your credibility doesn’t. Women don’t need pity. They need protection. And they need it now.