Jakarta, Indonesia – Indonesia’s nationwide motto is unity in variety, however Wiwin’s experiences at school have made her query how that maxim performs out in actual life.
The 21-year-old lives in West Java. Her household is a part of a spiritual minority known as Sunda Wiwitan, who venerate nature and ancestral worship.
She stated she confronted relentless stress in highschool to put on a “jilbab”, a free garment worn by some Muslim ladies, which covers the top, neck and chest.
She informed Al Jazeera she usually cried after faculty.
“They [a group of seven teachers] questioned me within the headmaster’s workplace, asking, what’s your faith … who’s your God … the place is your holy e-book?” Wiwin recounted.
“Throughout faith classes, my trainer would say, put on a hijab. I felt low shallowness … throughout recess, my mates typically known as me kafir [non-Muslim].”
She informed Al Jazeera one in every of her academics threatened to offer her a fail grade if she didn’t put on a jilbab.
“My faculty was a public faculty. All religions ought to be capable to go to highschool with out being compelled to put on a jilbab, it’s our private proper,” she stated.
“What’s the usage of [saying] ‘unity in variety’, if academics don’t perceive?”
A brand new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) revealed on Thursday examined rising spiritual intolerance in Indonesia and its colleges and located ladies and ladies face rising stress to stick to non secular costume codes within the Muslim-majority nation, no matter their religion.
Ladies bullied
One of many authors of the report, Andreas Harsono, tells Al Jazeera younger ladies of all faiths face harassment, bullying and threats of expulsion from academics.
It’s a follow the report calls “jilbab bullying”.
“It’s a breach of spiritual freedoms, freedom of expression, privateness, one of the best pursuits of the kid. In training everywhere in the world, bullying is an enormous no-no,” he stated.
Harsono says forcing costume codes on ladies goes towards the values of Indonesia.
“Indonesia is without doubt one of the world’s most numerous international locations, we’ve got tons of of religions, languages and ethnic teams. Indonesia was all the time based mostly on this precept of variety,” he stated.
“That is critical, that is going to go away a long-lasting influence on Indonesian ladies.”
The report particulars how laws on faculty uniforms, issued in 2014, had been interpreted by some colleges and areas as mandating that ladies ought to put on a jilbab – though those that wrote the regulation stated they by no means truly wrote the phrase “obligatory”.
The analysis by HRW was carried out over seven years – and documented the experiences of girls who’ve been pressured in colleges or public places of work due to these costume codes.
The researchers harassed that: “Human Rights Watch takes no place on whether or not sporting the hijab, jilbab, or niqab is fascinating. We oppose authorities insurance policies of each compelled veiling, in addition to blanket or disproportionate bans on sporting spiritual costume.”
In some situations, schoolchildren had been publicly humiliated within the classroom as academics lower up their uniforms with scissors and despatched them residence, for supposedly failing to adjust to costume codes.
“Each time they noticed me, they stated… you must consider your dad and mom… don’t you’re feeling sorry that they are going to endure later within the afterlife?”
Others interviewed by the researchers stated their academics or superiors threatened to report them to the provincial authorities.
A number of the ladies interviewed by HRW stated they skilled anxiousness, despair and suicidal ideas on account of the bullying.
UNICEF has additionally beforehand famous its considerations in regards to the behaviour of academics in Indonesian school rooms, describing how they usually use bodily and emotionally violent types of punishment to self-discipline kids.
Human Rights Watch discovered this stress will not be solely skilled by spiritual minorities however by Muslim ladies too.
Justisia, aged 17, informed Al Jazeera she skilled each day stress from her academics as a result of she was one in every of solely two Muslim ladies who selected to not put on a headband at her junior highschool.
“Each time they noticed me, they stated … you must consider your dad and mom … Don’t you’re feeling sorry that they are going to endure later, within the afterlife?
“My academics stated I’d make my dad and mom sad and I felt responsible due to that.”
Defending costume codes
A college within the metropolis of Padang, West Sumatra, sparked nationwide debate after directors tried to pressure a Christian scholar to put on a hijab.
Her story went viral after her father posted it on social media – and the controversy prompted the Indonesian authorities to ban public colleges from forcing spiritual apparel on college students.
When the ban was introduced in February, Indonesia’s Spiritual Affairs minister stated there was no cause to infringe upon the liberty of one other particular person within the identify of spiritual expression.
Academics on the faculty in Padang denied forcing feminine college students to observe spiritual costume codes.
“We ask the feminine college students to put on a hijab, however it’s as much as the scholars in the event that they take it or not,” faith trainer Arvini Yorianda stated.
“We solely inform them that it’s an obligation to put on the hijab in Islam.”
Muhammad Cholil Nafis, an govt of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), says academics who attempt to stress non-Muslim ladies to put on a hijab or jilbab are misguided – however he disagrees with the federal government’s transfer to ban obligatory spiritual costume codes in public colleges.
“We do need to pressure our youngsters, like we pressure them to throw rubbish within the right place,” he stated. “For college kids who don’t wish to put on a hijab but, that’s the place training is available in.”
However human rights observers have warned that the ban itself will not be sufficient and HRW has listed a number of suggestions for the federal government.
Amongst them, the report notes that the federal government ought to enhance mechanisms for registering their grievances so kids have higher avenues to hunt assist.
It additionally recommends President Joko Widodo work on laws to repeal present native laws that discriminate on the idea of gender.
It’s unclear how the suggestions will probably be acquired, however Justisia hopes different schoolgirls won’t face the identical stress she did.
She is now finding out at one other faculty and he or she says her new academics are extra open-minded.
A pal at her earlier faculty informed her she would ultimately “see the sunshine” and alter her thoughts about sporting a hijab.
However Justisia stays satisfied that sporting a hijab needs to be a selection – not an obligation.
“The sunshine is totally different for all of us,” she stated.