HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Damaging Debate on Rapes

Update on Rapes of Ethnic Chinese Women in Jakarta

(October 12, 1998)


Related Material

Better Protection Of Rapes Investigators Needed
HRW Press Release, October 12, 1998

What You Can Do
(Updated on September 4, 1998)

A Leading Academic and Human Rights Defender Dr. Saparinah Sadli's Open Letter to the Minister of Defence and Security (in response to an article by 'Did Mass Rapes Actually Happen?' by Sri Muryono/Antara)

HRW Action Alert: Economic Crisis Leads to Scapegoating of Ethnic Chinese
February 1998

The Anti-Chinese Element
Excerpts from: Human Rights Watch Report - Indonesia: The Medan Demonstrations And Beyond (May 16, 1994 Vol.6, No.4)


(September 8, 1998)-- Human Rights Watch today called on senior Indonesian government officials to immediately cease efforts to discredit reports of rapes of ethnic Chinese women during riots in Jakarta in May. Instead, they should work to create a climate where victims of sexual violence might be more willing to come forward. In a new report titled "The Damaging Debate On Rapes of Ethnic Chinese Women," the organization said the debate raging on whether or not rapes had occurred was obscuring other issues, including the extent to which the May rioting was organized, the fact that sexual violence other than rape occurred, and the need to make Indonesia a society where people of all ethnicities felt secure.