Harmonization of Law And Custom: Eliminating Cultural Practices of Violence Against Women

Abstract

This article aims to describe the cultural practices of indigenous peoples that are contrary to criminal law in Indonesia and formulate efforts to harmonize cultural values adopted by indigenous peoples and criminal law in Indonesia. The research methods used are normative research methods with a statutory approach, a historical approach, a concept approach, and a case approach. The results showed that indigenous peoples have practices that are considered as certain indigenous cultures that often harm women. This is due to an inherited misconception that indigenous cultural practices are used to avoid positive state laws and commit violence against women. Some examples of cases include the practice of capture marriage adopted by indigenous peoples in Sumba, East Nusa Tenggara, the abuse of customary settlements for rape crimes to avoid state law that has occurred in Papua and East Kalimantan. Therefore, this article recommends a humanist approach to indigenous peoples to provide an understanding of actions that are considered cultural practices that are actually contrary to human values and positive law. To realize this, implementing regulations are needed to regulate technical and tools that function to disseminate values and understanding of sexual violence crimes which are currently regulated in Law Number 12 of 2022 concerning Sexual Violence Crimes.