The big news of late in Indonesia concerns the "new" law regarding sex outside of marriage and cohabitation among unmarried couples. I put quote marks around the word new because this law is not really new, but merely a redrafting of a law on the books ever since the Dutch Colonial age. In short, sex outside of marriage always has been illegal here in a technical sense, though rarely enforced to any significant extent except in hyper religious provinces such as Aceh. What is new is the attention brought to the matter by the recent legislation.
It has also aroused the ire of foreign tourists and indeed of the tourism industry in Bali, which, should the law actually be taken seriously, would surely be in ruin.
But it is difficult indeed to imagine how such laws could be enforced, without jailing a large percentage of the population. Believe me, sex outside of marriage is just as common here in Indonesia as anywhere else in the world. The only difference is that they pretend it is not so.
The new law as written is actually a softening of the old (not that this makes it any less stupid overall). In the case of the new law, a complaint against the offending couple must be lodged by an immediate family member, whereupon people convicted of this commonplace diversion may face up to a year in prison. Beforehand, any random person could make the complaint.
That's called 'progress' in Indonesia.
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