"TransJakarta, as a mass transportation in Jakarta, is now unsafe and uncomfortable" says Sukarto, the moderator of Paguyuban Pengemudi Angkutan Darat (The Driver Union of Land Transportation). Well, his statement maybe partly true.
There are some cases in which female passengers become the target of sexual harassment on the buses. To cope with this problem, the passengers, especially the female passengers need public transportation that provides safer transportation for them who often feel uncomfortable due to being squeezed in with men in buses. Such initiative is necessary to make TransJakarta become the first choice of Jakarta passengers because it can help them arrive more quickly to their destinations. Currently in 2016, the ridership of TransJakarta is 320.000 passengers per day from the targeted 1 million passengers per day. Based on the data in 2007, the number of TransJakarta passengers was around 468.709 passengers a year while in 2009, there were about 879.325 passengers a year. With this high volume of passenger, it is possible for somebody to commit crimes. From the last data, the percentage of crimes in TransJakarta buses has increased in the past 2 years with 51.92% of those crimes suffered by female passengers. Because of that PT Transportasi Jakarta, the operator of TransJakarta, launched female-only buses for female passengers in April 2016. There are several reasons why special pink color female-only buses for female passengers are needed: protection for female passengers against criminals, the numbers of crimes against women remains high and bad impacts of crimes for the victims.
The first reason is that female passengers must be protected against criminals. In most cases, when women become the victims of sexual assaults, or sexual harassment they can only cry and unable to fight back. The victims think that the criminals have prepared some weapons which can be used to harm the victims. The criminals know and make use of this condition and think that women are weak. In some cases, the crimes go unreported because the victims maybe too shy to report the case of sexual harassment. To make it worse, other passengers who witness the crime do not help the victim or try to catch the criminals. They think about their own safety and may be too frightened to challenge the perpetrators. When the case is reported to the police, the victims often ended up arguing with police over the charges. The police investigators argue whether the offense is sexual harassment or offensive behavior. Based on Article 289 of the Criminal Code on sexual harassment, the perpetrator will face a maximum nine-year prison sentence, while for offense behavior they will face lower punishment. According to the police, it is considered as offensive behavior since there is no struggling during the action while this in fact can be categorized as attempted rape.œ
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| Female-only Buses - The Jakarta Globe |
The second reason is such cases remain high. Female passengers, who are mostly employees, still use TransJakarta since it is considered more efficient and faster than other public transportation. The situation of the crowded buses during the peak hours is made uses by some criminals to do their action on the buses. The problem may be caused by some reasons. First, it is due to the lack of the bus conductor. Inside the bus there is only one bus conductor who maybe male or female one. So, it will be easy for the perpetrator to commit a crime. In addition, in some buses there is no CCTV even though it is very helpful for the security purposes. CCTV is only put on the top corner inside the bus, so when the bus is crowded, the CCTV cannot monitor the passengers clearly. The criminals are not afraid with bus conductor because they think the conductors are not from security personnel. The second reason for such case is due to the inadequate bus fleet. A number of such cases have been reported on board especially in the crammed TransJakarta buses. The increasing numbers of passengers is not balanced with the proper increase in the number of buses. Even though the management of TransJakarta has tried to make separation between male and female passengers in waiting lines and inside buses on some corridors, the passengers are often forced to be jammed and packed especially during rush hours. The separation for female passengers is still not enough to accommodate the high number of female passengers. For example, in a single trip there are only two chains and the place for the female passengers is one in small chain. This situation forces the female passengers to take regular chain for the trip.
The last reason is the bad impact of the offense to the victims. One of the impacts is mental disorder which is the worst impact for the victim of sexual assaults. The experience of being sexually harassed in public place can ruin the victim mentally. They can become less confident and become aloof and fear of strangers especially when the victim is among the crowd. The worst scenario is that she may end up committing suicide. The second impact is physical disorder, which is injury that the victim suffers. And the last impact is social anxiety disorder.
In short, we can say that TransJakarta buses are still the main transportation for a lot of people in Jakarta, especially for female passengers who are 40 % of the passengers. PT Transportasi Jakarta, as the operator of the buses, has tried to make solutions to decrease crimes on TransJakarta buses. However, the small number of special place or female-only buses force the female passengers have to take the regular place or the regular buses. As a part of security initiative, PT Transportasi Jakarta should provide or make more special place for female passengers be effective. With special buses for female passengers they feel more comfortable and secured because lots of women hesitate to stand side-by-side with male passengers. The pink female-only buses will make them feel that they are treated better while more bus fleet will reduce the long wait for the passengers thus minimize the crime to take place.
By Maulida Fitri
Image : The Jakarta Globe
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