An Indonesian man named Muh Aris bin Syukur from the city of
Mojokerto in East Java was sentenced with chemical castration for the rape of
nine children in a landmark ruling for the country.
In 2016, President Joko Widodo signed a Perppu (Presidential
Regulation In Lieu of Law) introducing the death penalty and chemical
castration for convicted child molesters, which was ratified into law that same
year by the House of Parliament (DPR).
Three years on, Aris has become the first convicted child
molester to be given the sentence in court.
Aris was found guilty of raping nine girls from 2015-2018 in
Mojokerto. He was arrested in October 2018 after he was caught by a CCTV camera
molesting his latest victim.
As reported by CNN Indonesia, documents from Aris’ court
case showed that, on July 18, the Mojokerto High Court upheld a 12-year prison
sentence and IDR100 million (US$7,012) fine given to Aris by the Mojokerto
District Court in May.
While that sentence is more lenient than the 17 years
demanded by prosecutors, the District Court judges handed Aris an additional
punishment for his crimes.
“We hereby give the additional sentence in the form of
chemical castration to the convicted,” the court ruling reads
The case prosecutors did not demand that Aris be chemically
castrated in their indictment.
Given that the punishment has no precedent in Indonesia, the
Mojokerto Prosecutors Office say they have no means yet to chemically castrate
Aris so no date for the execution of the sentence has yet been announced.
Chemical castration as a punishment was ratified into law in
Indonesia after the shockingly brutal gang rape and murder of a teenage girl in
Bengkulu in 2016.
Activists say that the threat of severe punishment has not
been as successful a deterrent as the government hoped, as sexual assault
against children continue to be a serious problem in Indonesia.
A lack of means has been one of the main barriers preventing
the punishment from being rendered to convicted child molesters thus far.
Soon after the punishment was introduced, the government
controversially sought the help of The Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) to
chemically castrate convicted child molesters, but the country’s medical professionals
refused on the grounds that the procedure violates medical ethics. (NAN)
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