Human Rights Issue of the Week: Female Motorcyle Driver in Aceh

Human rights issue of the week in Indonesia is a controversial bylaw from the city of Lhokseumawe, in Aceh province, that bans female motorcyle driver to sit astride on the motorbike. Local government, who proposed this bylaw, said that such action is considered "un-Islamic" and therefore should be banned.

The local mayor said that the law does not ban women to ride motorcycle and that they can still sit astride when they are driving. However, when a woman becomes a passenger she has to sit side-saddle. Proponents say that this bylaw is aimed to protect women, because by sitting astride they might provoke "immoral behavior" from the men who see them.

Obviously, this law quickly garners a lot of criticism both from inside and outside Aceh. Critics say, correctly, that this law is degrading to women, because it assumes that women are the source of immoral behavior. Rather than protecting women by creating stronger legal framework to punish sexual offenders (who are mostly male), this law seeks to put women as the object to be controlled and regulated.

Aceh is the only province in Indonesia that applies strict Sharia law. This bylaw, however, will only apply to the city of Lhokseumawe and not to the whole province. Some activists are calling for the central government to strike down the law because it contradicts law no. 39/1999 on human rights.

This event is the latest of a series of controversies involving the application of sharia in Aceh. In 2011, the Aceh government forcibly shut down a punk music concert in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, detained about a dozen of punks and sent them to a re-education camp. They declared that punk music is 'un-Islamic' and therefore should not be allowed in Aceh.

Sources:
Indonesia city to ban women 'straddling motorbikes'  from BBC
Lhoksheumawe larang perempuan duduk ngangkang (in Indonesian)
Indonesia's Aceh punk shaved for 'reeducation' from BBC