Indonesia to crack down on sex and older expats

Expats as well as locals in Indonesia are confused and angry over the government’s plan to make sex before marriage a criminal offence.

The recently announced new laws form part of a criminal code banning sex before marriage as well as outlawing abortions and making insults against the archipelago’s president illegal. Prison sentences of a year could result should the sex before marriage law be broken, and cohabitation will also become a criminal offence. The new criminal code was scheduled to be voted on tomorrow, but the vote has now been postponed to give Indonesia’s parliament more time to debate the issues. Over the weekend, protestors against the new laws took to the streets of the capital and were met by police firing water cannons and tear gas. Sulawesi Island also saw two days of protests, with most aimed at projected changes in the state’s anti-corruption laws.

Thousands of young people and student protestors took to the streets in other Indonesian cities, whilst the main clashes were taking place in Jakarta after demonstrators demanded a meeting with the speaker of parliament Bambang Soestayo. Also under review are laws related to gay sex, with parliamentarians saying same-sex relationships should have no place in the country and others saying adultery is already a crime against the Muslim state religion. The Indonesian expat and tourist hub of Bali has a large expat community, with expat ‘sugar daddies’ much sought after by the local ladies, many of whom hope to persuade foreigners to leave their wives and marry them instead.

Since 2016, an expat exodus has reduced the numbers of foreign workers, affecting both the housing market and the employment of local people as gardeners, maids and even bodyguards. Many locals who lost their jobs are still unemployed, relying on day-to-day work in a shrinking expat marketplace, and international schools are seeing applications slump. Should the disputed new laws be eventually passed, another expat exodus might well result in even more hardship for local people as well as increasing unemployment statistics. The majority of expats are employed in the oil and gas sector, with tighter controls already placed on visa and work permit applications and strict age limits of 55 years for incoming professionals, exempting only top executives.