Ministries and State Institutions in Jokowi government proposed a draft of Government Regulation in lieu of Law (PERPPU) to adopt chemical castration for perpetrators of child sexual crime. This proposal creates pros and cons among stakeholders including those legal experts, medics and human rights activists.
The Government seems to have in-agreement attitude to provide additional sanction for criminals of child sexual crime through chemical castration. If heavier penal is being executed, then there will be contradictory to prevailing principles of penal judgments to the perpetrators, and also in contradiction to types of criminal sanctions in Indonesian Penal Code (KUHP). KUHP only acknowledges primary sanction and additional sanction which is no mention of providing chemical castration, a corporal punishment or punishment to the body, in these two-type sanctions.
To Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR), particularly to Alliance 99, a network of hundreds of civil society non-government organizations in Indonesia who concern to child victims of child sexual abuse, the government proposal on chemical castration definitely would be strictly declined. The discourse of PERPPU on chemical castration for perpetrators of child sexual crime is a step which is no longer loyal to the idea of democratic criminal law and human rights oriented in criminal law reform.
This government effort is deemed to be “revenge” effort in the name of victim interest which provides heavier burden in criminal sanctions to perpetrators rather than thinks of criminal prevention to sexual crimes and right-to-remedy to victims.
Providing chemical castration is not a fair way-out to victims and there are no significant relations between chemical castration and the reduced numbers of child sexual offences, there is no science effect, that victims will be recovered by providing additional sanction of chemical castration to the perpetrators. Government has been lulled by chemical castration, that it could be a “magic” solution to provide criminal sanction to perpetrators of sexual offences in the future.
For that reason, therefore, ICJR take initiative to conduct research on comparison in some countries that have prevailing national laws on chemical castration. It is significant to be conducted so that Indonesia will not take wrongfully acts in creating and implementing such policy.
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